Variety of casual dining operators to feature in next New Openings Database released on Friday: Premium Club members will receive the next The New Openings Database on Friday (1 March), at midday. The database features openings by casual dining operators such as Wahaca, which is returning to the expansion trail with an opening in London’s Paddington. Meanwhile, African restaurant Afrikana has revealed a pipeline of 50-plus restaurants, with up to ten set to open this year, while Ottolenghi is set to make its regional debut with an opening in Oxfordshire. The database will show the details of 64 site openings, including which company has opened a site or its plans to open one in the future. It will have details on what type of site it is and its location, and there will also be a website link to the businesses. The database is published on a monthly basis and Premium Club members will also receive a 2,800-word report on the new additions to the database. Premium Club members also receive access to five other databases: the Multi-Site Database, produced in association with Virgate; the Turnover & Profits Blue Book; the UK Food and Beverage Franchisor Database; the UK Food and Beverage Franchisee Database and the Who’s Who of UK Hospitality. All subscribers will be offered a 20% discount on tickets to five Propel paid-for events – The Excellence in Pub Retailing Conference (14 May), Social Media for Profit (18 July), the Talent and Training Conference (1 October) and Restaurant Marketer and Innovator (two days in January 2025). Operators will also be able to send up to four members of staff to each of our four Multi-Club Conferences for free. Premium Club members receive their daily Propel Info newsletter 11 hours earlier than standard subscribers, at 7pm the evening before. They also receive videos of presentations at eight Propel conference events two weeks after they are held. This represents around 100 videos of industry insight over the course of the year. Premium Club members will be sent a dedicated monthly newsletter that will highlight key updates in the sector and direct subscribers to all the vital content their membership offers. Premium Club members also receive exclusive opinion columns every Friday at 5pm, which include the thoughts of Propel group editor Mark Wingett and a host of industry leaders from across the sector. A Premium Club subscription costs an annual sum of £495 plus VAT for operators and £595 plus VAT for suppliers. Companies can now have an unlimited number of people receive access to Premium Club for a year for £995 plus VAT – whether they are an operator or a supplier. Email kai.kirkman@propelinfo.com today to sign up.

Black Sheep Brewery CEO to depart: Black Sheep Brewery has announced chief executive Charlene Lyons is stepping down to pursue other interests, after almost nine years with the business. Mark Williams, chief executive of Keystone Brewing Group (formerly Breal Group), which owns Black Sheep, alongside a number of other breweries, will assume chief executive duties. He will be assisted by John Hunt, former managing director of Purity Brewing Co, in the newly created position of group chief financial officer for Keystone Brewing Group. The group said since its acquisition of Black Sheep in May 2023, the brewery has “taken many positive steps”, including the opportunity to work alongside and raise funds for rugby legend Rob Burrow through the launch of Burrow’s Blonde – now the brewery’s fastest growing bottled beer. In addition, at the start of the year, a £1m investment into Black Sheep’s Masham site was announced. which will see it become “the centre for brewing excellence in the region and beyond”. The investment entails an entirely new tank farm and state-of-the-art brewhouse at its Wellgarth site, and the transformation of the capability and capacity at its Fearby Road packaging facility. This week, it was announced Breal Group would rebrand to Keystone Brewing Group, in a move to solidify the group’s commitment to the future of each brand within its portfolio.

Government reappoints Fiona Dickie as Pubs Code adjudicator: The government has reappointed Fiona Dickie as Pubs Code adjudicator (PCA) for a further three-year period, following on from her current term, which ends on 2 May 2024. The PCA is responsible for enforcing the statutory Pubs Code, which regulates the relationship between large pub-owning businesses and their tied pub tenants in England and Wales. The PCA has powers to arbitrate individual disputes about the code, investigate suspected breaches by pub-owning businesses and impose sanctions, including financial penalties, when there is non-compliance. Dickie said: “Much progress has been made in restoring balance in the relationship between tied pub tenants and pub-owning businesses through embedding cultural change in the tied sector so that tenants’ businesses can thrive. I am proud of the PCA’s success in reducing arbitration cases and successfully completing the first investigation under the code. I will continue the important work to promote transparency and responsible compliance behaviours and, through improved communication and early engagement with the sector, help to avoid formal disputes while ensuring tenants’ code rights are protected.” Dickie was appointed as the PCA in May 2020 for a four-year term. Prior to that, she was the deputy PCA from November 2017 until May 2020.

Key inflation indicators still high, says Bank of England deputy: Key measures of consumer price inflation remain “elevated”, a deputy governor of the Bank of England has said, pushing back against expectations of imminent interest rate cuts. Sir Dave Ramsden, one of the bank’s three deputies, said he was looking for signs of how “entrenched” key measures of wage inflation and price growth in the service sector are before voting for interest rate cuts for the first time since 2020, reports The Times. “Although services inflation and wages growth have fallen by somewhat more in recent months than we had expected last autumn, key indicators of inflation persistence remain elevated,” Sir Dave said in a speech to the Association for Financial Markets in Europe. “In terms of my thinking about the future, I am looking for more evidence about how entrenched this persistence will be and therefore about how long the current level of bank rate will need to be maintained.” Sir Dave was one of six members of the monetary policy committee who in February voted to keep borrowing costs on hold at 5.25% for another month, pushing back against two votes for further tightening and one vote in favour of a reduction to 5%. A majority of the nine-strong committee have said it is too early to declare victory over inflation, which has fallen from a headline rate over 11% in October 2022 to 4% at the start of the year. The bank makes its next interest rate decision on Thursday, 21 March, and will have more data on the state of inflation, the labour market, economic growth at the start of the year, and the government’s fiscal policy decisions at next week’s spring Budget. Financial markets expect the committee to keep the bank rate on hold for the sixth consecutive month.