I’ve had a note to write about resilience for months. I wish I’d acted on it sooner. Spring 2025 is shaping up to be one of the driest in nearly 70 years. March and April saw rainfall levels plummet across the UK, and it shows.

 

Farmers report spring crops that have barely germinated. The winter wheat that struggled through a sodden start is now being scorched into submission. Barley’s doing slightly better, but yields are already down on the five-year average, with nitrogen levels too low for reliable malting.  

 

The UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology warns that river flows across most of the country are expected to remain below or exceptionally below normal levels from May to July, increasing the threat of drought.  

 

The Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board reports the average protein level for UK Flour Millers group 1 wheat varieties has fallen to 12.5%, its lowest level in more than a decade. These aren't just problems for farmers, they’re problems for every pint pulled and plate served across the country. 

 

While crops fail in the fields, industry voices are still calling sustainability a “nice to have”. Let’s be absolutely clear: it's not. It's a business imperative and a fast-moving one. 

 

Hospitality doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Every menu depends on a food system that is increasingly under stress from extreme weather, biodiversity loss, energy volatility and rising input costs. When that system buckles, it doesn’t just affect supply chains, it threatens our ability to serve customers at all. 

 

We need to talk about resilience. Not just in terms of carbon and net zero – vital though those are – but in the real, practical sense of being able to weather a crisis and come out the other side. Operators who build resilience into their approach will stand a better chance of weathering the storm. And make no mistake: that crisis is here now – not 2050 or 2030 – and it’s only just started. 

 

We’ve all felt the pinch of food price inflation, but we haven’t yet properly reckoned with the why. Weather volatility is pushing up costs and shrinking margins. From droughts to floods, crops are failing, harvests are shrinking and prices are jumping.  

 

Staples like potatoes, beef and oil have all seen price volatility of 400% in the past five years. Those costs are passed on, whether we like it or not, and we haven’t seen the worst of it yet as emissions, and temperatures, continue to rise. The sector has been up in arms about the increase in national insurance contributions, and rightly so, but this will pale into insignificance when the existential threat of unavailable food – nutritious, delicious food that customers want and people need – is no longer available. 

 

We must treat this crisis for what it really is – a  looming existential crisis. We need better data on what extreme weather has cost the hospitality sector over the last five years in lost produce, higher prices, cancelled bookings and even entire menu redesigns (we’re working on it).  

 

Even without precise figures, the direction of travel is clear: climate volatility is no longer a long-term risk – it’s a current operational one. That’s why sustainability needs to be at the heart of hospitality strategy – to build resilience, improve efficiency and protect brand. Not as a bolt-on, not as a “nice to have”, but as core business. 

Hospitality has always been an industry rooted in the human touch. But in today’s hyper-connected world, guests’ expectations are evolving rapidly, and hospitality businesses must blend emotional intelligence with a data-driven approach to stay ahead.

 

Artificial intelligence (AI) isn’t just a buzzword any more, it’s becoming the foundation for truly personalised, predictive and powerful guest experiences. At 125 Data & Insights, we're seeing how forward-thinking operators are leveraging AI to enhance the guest journey at every stage. Here are three transformative ways AI is redefining how hospitality brands listen, respond and grow.

 

Every day, hospitality businesses collect mountains of feedback through guest surveys and online reviews. But without the right tools, this data can feel like a tidal wave of noise rather than a fountain of wisdom. AI-driven platforms are now making it possible to ingest thousands of reviews and survey responses, identify recurring themes, track sentiment over time and surface critical trends. This means operators can spot both emerging issues and hidden opportunities faster than ever. 

 

Is there a growing concern about breakfast quality? Are guests consistently praising the friendliness of your staff? Because AI can link the impact that certain topics are having on the overall guest experience (consider that the things people complain about the most are not always the things that have the biggest impact on overall sentiment) it can then surface the most important actions to be taken or issues to be addressed and the potential value of completing those actions could have. AI gives decision-makers the clarity and confidence to act on real insights, not hunches. 

 

We know that positive reviews drive bookings. But too often, glowing feedback collected through private surveys never sees the light of day. One exciting innovation we're seeing is the use of AI to help guests effortlessly transform their survey responses into polished, personalised reviews they can post publicly.

 

With just a few clicks, a guest who shared positive feedback in a survey can receive a suggested review draft, tailored in their tone and style, ready to push to Google with a single click. This not only amplifies your brand’s reputation, but also empowers guests to share their stories in a way that feels authentic and easy. We are already seeing this have a huge impact on review volume, with some brands seeing a 27% increase in review volume, as well as a big impact on their review score.

 

In a competitive landscape, knowing how you perform against your peers is invaluable. AI can now aggregate and analyse review scores across competitors, breaking them down by key topics such as food, service, atmosphere, and value. This allows businesses to benchmark their performance and understand where they truly shine or where they need to step up.

 

More importantly, AI can categorise competitor feedback in ways that highlight market trends and guest expectations, enabling operators to fine-tune their offerings proactively. It’s like having a secret window into the voice of your competitors' customers.

 

AI isn’t here to replace hospitality’s human core. Instead, it’s augmenting our ability to listen both broadly and deeply, act quickly and deliver experiences that guests remember and rave about. 

 

At 125 Data & Insights, we're proud to be at the forefront of this evolution, helping hospitality brands unlock the power of their data to serve with greater insight and empathy. Because when you pair great people with great technology, magic happens.

As Napoleon Bonaparte supposedly once said while surveying his armies: “I don’t know what they do to the enemy, but they frighten the life out of me.”

 

Marketing people like to believe they can understand and control the consumer, but there are times when battalions of that great army just march off in whatever direction they please. The prime example, in licensed hospitality at least, was the success of the Campaign for Real Ale in saving cask beer.

 

By the 1970s, the big brewers thought they knew what drinkers wanted – cold, fizzy and consistently reliable keg ale. Cask conditioned beer was, in any case, too much bother. Who would choose to make a product that relied on disparate retailers to complete its manufacture?

 

But drinkers disagreed. Too bland, they said. At the beginning, there were just four belligerent journalists, but their number quickly grew until they could no longer be ignored.

 

While some regional brewers had followed the lead of the national players, and more wavered, others seized the opportunity to stand by their consumers and declare their commitment to cask. They were joined by many publicans. 

 

Remarkably, it grew into a movement that turned the tide of keg ale. What’s happening now with draught Bass is, of course, on a much smaller scale. Yet it is just as surprising, in its way.

 

To bring you up to speed, the Bass brand with its famous red triangle – the first registered trademark, powerful and evocative enough to feature in works of art by Manet and Picasso – fell into the hands of Interbrew when Bass Brewers was broken up for sale at the turn of this century.

 

Its current owner, AB InBev, showed little interest in it, putting it up for sale and contracting out the brewing to Marston’s, now owned by Carlsberg. Understandable, perhaps, given the tiny role that Bass plays in its portfolio of vast international lagers.

 

Distribution shrivelled and became concentrated in just three counties of England: Staffordshire, Derbyshire and Leicestershire. We know exactly where to find Bass handpumps, not from the brand owner but from a band of loyal drinkers who painstakingly track the appearance of the red triangle and log it on a National Bass Directory that’s updated monthly.

 

They also organise a National Bass Day each Easter Saturday to raise awareness of the brand, and they promote it through a Facebook group called “Great Stuff This Bass”, mimicking an old advertising slogan.

 

Draught Bass has, in short, became a cult, a cause, thanks its scarcity, and, to give credit to the brewers at Marston’s, its continuing distinctive character.

 

Cult followers campaign to not only raise awareness of a beer that seemed to be disappearing forever, but to somehow cajole AB InBev into giving it more support, a support that had dwindled to no more than branded glassware.

 

And, to everyone’s surprise, they seem to have succeeded. AB InBev has suddenly woken to the potential of such a historic brand and embarked on a relaunch, investing in new point-of-sale, including a smart metal pump clip, and even a lavishly photographed Instagram feed.

 

Why? Of course, the company doesn’t mention the drinkers’ campaign. In a brochure sent out to the pub trade to recruit more stockists, it cites the brand’s high and increasing rate of sale (especially important for a cask ale) and rising volume growth. 

 

In a declining category, it’s up 9% year-on-year. That’s enough to wake any brewer to a brand’s potential. The question is, with no corporate marketing effort going into it, how did it happen?

 

Two years ago, there were just 350 pubs permanently stocking Bass. According to the directory, that’s now 580. It looks as though more licensees were already discovering its value. And in that time, “Great Stuff This Bass” has almost trebled its followers. That sounds like consumer power.

 

AB InBev might also have glanced at the recent success of Timothy Taylor’s Landlord, an ale that enjoys similar fame as Bass, if not quite the longevity.

 

Of course, it might merely be an effort to enhance the value of the brand in preparation to a sale, which may be no bad thing for the Bass fan. There is the strange danger that it may grow too big and lose its cult status; the sense of it being a symbol of a defiant struggle against accountancy-driven corporate capitalism.

 

And I suppose the lesson for the capitalists is don’t imagine you can do what you think is right for a business and forget about the people who buy your stuff. Leaders like Napoleon knew that as you march ahead, it’s always a good idea to look round and check everyone’s still following.

Visiting Battersea Beer festival in 1987-88 was a revelation for all drinkers present that year because it was the first time a truly golden ale had been produced in the UK. Exmoor Gold from Exmoor Ales in Somerset created a buzz in south west London because it was a lip-smacking departure from the ubiquitous brown ales at that time.

 

This wonderful brew defined a whole new incredibly popular category of beer, and many others have invariably followed in its slip stream, but it has still maintained its quality, and 30-plus years later I’d argue it still has few peers. It was very sad, therefore, to recently hear that the brewery had closed its doors at its home in Wiveliscombe, as part of a restructure that will see brewing outsourced to Hogs Back Brewery.

 

This closure of a chapter was put down to not only rising costs, but also the increasing difficulty Exmoor had navigating a market where it is increasingly difficult to sell their products because the larger brewers are locking out smaller producers. Exmoor stated: “The closure of a brewery is always sad, but in the current market, it is becoming all too common as global brewers close opportunities for small local brewers.” 

 

This lock-out is achieved through a combination of tap contracts, incentives, loans for exclusive deals and aggressive sales people from the big global brands elbowing out the smaller producers. They are controlling what beers are offered to customers. A long-standing pub-owning customer of the brewery I co-owned removed our lager from the bar with an explanation that he liked the brew, but a rival large brewer had offered to fit a new carpet for free in his pub if he stocked its beer. He apologised but said he really needed the carpet. Other incentives from brewers include all-expenses-paid trips abroad – to visit the brewery, of course!

 

This is not unusual behaviour and is a major contributing factor behind the closure of 136 breweries between March 2024 and March 2025. The Society of Independent Brewers and Associates (SIBA) UK Brewery Tracker found the inaccessibility of pubs is having a devastating effect on smaller breweries. In a recent SIBA survey, it was found that 60% of local pubs are inaccessible to them, with 80% citing being locked out of beer lines as the primary barrier stymying sales in their local markets. This is a real issue because as much as 41% of brewers’ output is typically sold through local pubs (within a 40-mile radius of the brewery).

 

This scenario has ultimately come about as a result of the introduction of small brewers’ relief (SBR) in 2002, which led to an explosion in new breweries who enjoyed tax perks in order that they could then compete on price against the large global brewers. The legislation worked a treat. Arguably too well, and now the industry is suffering from something of a hangover. It undoubtedly led to too many breweries, with the result of overcapacity, and hence, closures.

 

More damagingly, it also prompted the big brewers to fight the increased competition by upping their game to aggressively tie up taps at pubs. Heineken-owned Beavertown Neck Oil seems to almost be the de facto “craft” beer available in so many bars nowadays as the large brewer has done a magnificent job boosting its presence – undoubtedly to the detriment of smaller, local brewers and reducing choice for drinkers.

 

Professor David Tyrrall, visiting professor at Staffordshire University, was instrumental in the introduction of SBR when he and a colleague analysed the market for Gordon Brown and the Treasury. He said: “The logic of SBR was to open up the market for small brewers. Being able to sell at a lower price was seen as a way to break into the market, but price is now no longer an issue.”

 

Recognising this, SIBA is lobbying the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy for an SBR 2.0, if you like. SIBA has recently sent over extensive documentation that argues the case, not for a tax break this time, but for a mechanism of some sort to give smaller brewers access to the many thousands of pubs from which they are currently locked out. 

 

Although Tyrrall points out that there is a lack of appetite by any administration for creating more legislation and introducing red tape, the reality is that myriad civil servants and ministers live off legislation. Against this uncertain backdrop, we have “National Beer Day/Beer Day Britain” on 15 June, when a “National Cheers to Beer” is orchestrated around the country involving raising a glass to the national drink. Let’s hope the beer you toast the day with will still be with us on next year’s National Beer Day.