Matt Starbuck

Hi everyone,

It’s great to be back and what a bumper start to the year we have had. We received planning permission for our brand-new brewery in Bury St Edmunds, reached some fantastic health and safety milestones, celebrated some audit success at Belhaven and saw the highest number of Pride of Greene King nominations we have ever received – more on this on pg5. I’m also excited to see the launch of Imperial IPA and Double Header – two new beers which will play a pivotal role in our strategy within the grocery channel and recruiting new drinkers.

We also held our leadership team roadshow series where we managed to get out and meet with over 350 of you. This really was an invaluable experience for us as a leadership team and it was brilliant to see the energy and engagement from those who came along. We look forward to the next round!

As a business we have had a pretty strong start to the year, making the most of the nice weather when we have had it and some of those big occasions that drive people into our pubs. However, we cannot get complacent, and we know that we are still operating in a very challenging market and consumer sentiment remains difficult. Our Own Brewed Volume also continues to underperform vs expectations, so this requires us to stay focused on delivering our strategy and plan which you can read more about on pages 16 and 17.

We know what our challenges are and whilst it’s important we face into those I remain confident that we have the right strategy and plan to deliver a strong result for the year. I’m really looking forward to seeing what the next quarter has in store for us. Thanks for your continued hard work and unwavering dedication.

Matt