In March this year the SIBA Cask Repatriation Committee canvassed the opinion of SIBA Council, as the membership’s elected representatives, on a number of proposals made by the British Beer & Pub Association’s [BBPA] Returnable Asset Management Panel (RAMP) regarding supply chain operations. The proposals were:

1. “Members will be responsible for accurately sorting all containers they have uplifted from trade and advising the owner of their whereabouts at their own expense and within a reasonable time period.”
This was agreed unanimously

2. “Members owning containers that had been recovered from trade by another organisation and the whereabouts of which had been notified to them will, at their own expense, arrange to collect those containers within a reasonable time period providing that provision is made to prevent erroneous uplifts of direct delivered casks by third parties.”
Agreed by majority
Of those that disagreed to this proposal they all stated that their objection was due to the risk of casks being uplifted erroneously and sent miles from their home brewery. This was exactly the reason that the provision for prevention of erroneous uplifts was included in the proposal.

3. “Spatrak would be enhanced and used as a mechanism for tracking container repatriation. Companies would be encouraged to input accurate data on container numbers and whereabouts on a timely basis and act rapidly on the information.”
Agreed by majority

4. “Members would only use Kegwatch accredited sites for scrapping containers.”
Agreed by majority
Of those that disagreed to this proposal their objections were due to a lack of accredited sites and that SIBA members have an inherent dislike of being told what to do.

5. “SIBA would endorse the implementation of a nationally recognised ‘Direct Delivered – only owning brewery to collect’ sticker on casks. For this to be effective there would need to be NO exceptions. Third Parties would not touch any casks bearing this sticker. The owning brewery would have to collect all their casks bearing that sticker in a timely manner regardless of whether the account is ordering beer.”
Agreed by majority
The Third Party referred to is a third party distributor e.g. Tradeteam or KNDL. The proposal would not preclude a brewer nominating another to collect their casks if necessary.
This proposal has been made by SIBA, in order to create an industry-wide way of identifying direct delivered casks. Third Party Distributor’s Draycrew uplift casks erroneously because there is no single, simple, industry approved way of differentiating between casks that have been delivered legitimately under a ‘Guest Beer’ scheme and those that have been delivered directly by an independent brewer.
Previous examples of this simple solution, such as the SIBA Direct Delivered stickers have been of limited use because the National Brewers were unaware of them. The approval of such a system by the National Brewers and the subsequent education of their draymen to recognise the label would improve the situation hugely.
We also need to educate our brewing members. Direct Delivered labels should not appear on any cask other than ones that have been direct delivered. If a brewer chooses to ignore this advise and sends Direct Delivered labelled casks to a wholesaler who then takes it to Aberdeen and forgets about it, then it will be the brewer who will be responsible for arranging it’s uplift.

RAMP has now produced a draft copy of their recommendations for Container Management Best Practice. A copy of this document is available to download here.

It is intended as a reference document which defines the best practice and against which brewers can measure themselves to determine their own position in relation to best practice. It is recognised that whilst some areas will already be in operation for other areas companies would need to work towards these over a period of time. The document contains a checklist to allow companies to benchmark their own working practice and to allow the BBPA & SIBA to collate the extent the industry as a whole progress in these areas.

CASK DEPOSITS

In March 1997 after two years of discussions on the subject the Brewers & Licensed Retailers Association (BLRA) announced that the decision had been reached to defer the introduction of container deposits. In a press release it was stated that “It has become apparent that container tracking would offer a means of reducing the costs of managing deposits by eliminating a large proportion of human error and fraud”

Of course the major players did not introduce cask tracking, but instead began to rent casks on a ‘pay per fill’ basis.

In 2007 we find ourselves faced with the same industry discussions on deposits as 10 years ago.

The emphasis currently is on devising a scheme that would work theoretically.

The UK beer industry is incredibly complex involving a huge number of different sized companies’ routeing their products into retail outlets (pubs) via many different means.

The terms of reference when attempting to devise a workable cask deposit scheme are:
- It must be an industry wide solution i.e. it must be workable by any brewer who wishes to use it.
- It must be able to be implemented quickly and efficiently
- It must be simple and robust
- It must have minimum impact on compliant customers
- It should be a single rate for all containers
- It must not be technologically dependent
- It must be a long term solution
- It must deliver an intrinsic value to the containers
- It must consider geographical boundaries

When discussing the possibilities for cask deposits we are not discussing the pros and cons of cask deposits. We are simply trying to ascertain whether there is potential for a scheme to be operated.

Implementation issues such as whether a deposit scheme can be justified commercially, security considerations and market acceptance will be considered separately assuming that a workable model can be found.

Independent breweries generally have a tighter control of their cask populations than the Nationals do. Where casks are going missing the majority of SIBA members know where they are going missing from. They have closer, personal relationships with their customers allowing them to discuss container losses on a one-to-one basis. In the majority they currently choose not to penalise these customers.

Erroneous uplift of casks by Third Party Distributors from shared accounts is deemed to be a significant contributory factor to the majority of Independent Brewers lost casks. These customers argue that a) they couldn’t prevent these erroneous uplifts occurring and b) that these casks will be returned to their owners…. eventually. We hope that by removing this element of cask loss then Independent Brewers will feel more justified in exercising their right to reclaim the replacement value of genuinely lost casks.