The introduction of a smoking ban across the UK will have effects that are not currently quantifiable with any degree of certainty. Nevertheless we have attempted to do so and we intend to develop our views and our forecasts as the smoking ban rolls out

We forecast that the smoking ban will help sales by £490 million by 2010 below the level they would otherwise have reached but inflation will hide this decline.

Food sales and sales of drinks that are consumed with food will actually increase.

In effect the smoking ban will magnify, or more helpfully bring forward by between two and five years, two changes which have been occurring for several years:

• growth in pub food sales
• decline in pub beer sales.

These effects will work for those pubs:

• that have identified their market with clarity – for instance: pub drinkers who like to smoke pure and simple, pub drinkers who mingle with pub eaters, or people who frequent a pub for its food rather than its beer
• that have a strategy and an offer in place that meets the market's needs
• that can deliver on that strategy in the face of growing competition – from pubs, restaurants, fish and chip shops, pizza bars etc.

Source: Horizons

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