Heineken to sell tenants previously out of date beer

The Publican’s Post has been made aware than Heineken UK has decided to extend the best before dates on their kegged beers and ciders.

Heineken announced this change is being applied to stock in warehouses ‘to support the re-start’ but is not being applied to stock currently in pubs. Heineken claim this is because Heineken is ‘certain of the quality of storage conditions in warehouses during lock-down’.

Heineken also assert that they have ‘historically shortened best before dates to assist with stock rotation’ but that in light of recent events ‘it will in the future be moving permanently to shelf lives of 6 months on beer and 9 months on cider’.

As a result, Heineken tenants may receive deliveries in the coming weeks of Heineken products with additional keg labels showing extended best before dates. Heineken assure us that this will have no impact on quality.

The issue we have is that tied pub tenants will have no choice but to accept the stock, and will have to put up or shut up. Hence why it will be easier to offload the stock to tied tenants than their free trade accounts. It’s well known within the industry that shorter shelf life beer commands a reduced price.

In a normal business relationship a purchaser would have the option to choose a different supplier if they felt there was a quality issue, or demand a discounted price. In the tied relationship, tenants will have no choice.

Naturally without testing the product we have no way of knowing whether the quality will noticeably differ – but it does raise a pertinent point, that tenants will have to accept the older beer regardless. It also raises the question as to why the old ‘best before’ date was actually chosen – we don’t accept that the quality will not have declined even partly.

Let’s just hope the customers don’t notice the difference drinking a 6 month old pint of Fosters…