Agenda item

Presentation from Laura Willoughby MBE, Co-founder, Club Soda.

The Chairman welcomed Laura Willoughby, Jussi Tolvi and Carmen D'Cruz of ‘Club Soda’ to the meeting and invited them to present to the Committee.

The Presentation covered the following points:

·        The idea behind ‘Nudging Pubs’ and looking at how the behaviour of pubs and bars might be changed rather than individuals;

·        Methodology;

·        Product Development;

·        Key Findings – to customers, to pubs and bars and to councils and licensing;

·        Recommendations;

·        Conclusions;

·        Theory of Change;

·        Existing Partners and Funders and how this might be extended to the City. It was noted that the London Borough of Hackney had part funded an initial project to develop a product.

In response to questions regarding what prompted this move, Laura Willoughby reported that Club Soda had a large online community where members regularly complained at the lack of healthier ‘soft drink’ choices available at licensed premises. Club Soda felt that this indicated a significant gap in the market and made approaches to the London Borough of Hackney.

In response to questions regarding the reason behind founding ‘Club Soda’ itself, Ms Willoughby reported that she had taken the decision to give up drinking four years ago and had quickly realised that there were no self-help tools (akin to Weight Watchers for those seeking to lose weight) for those who felt they were over drinking but not drink dependent.

In response to a question regarding the quality of non-alcoholic drinks currently on the market and whether this contributed to a reluctance from some premises to stock a wider range of these, Ms Willoughby commented that some non-alcoholic drinks could be more expensive than alcoholic alternatives and that this price point was therefore an issue for some. She added that many premises also tended to purchase their soft drinks from their alcohol providers and that there was therefore also a role for wholesalers to play in changing behaviours.

In response to further questions, Ms Willoughby reported that communication with the London Borough of Hackney had been via their Public Health Team. She added that, at this stage, the City were the only other Local Authority that had been approached regarding the ‘Nudging Pubs’ initiative.

The Deputy Chairman commented that she felt that this would be a positive move in terms of helping the City to ensure that its licensed premises were as inclusive as possible. She added that it might be useful to arrange a similar presentation for the London Licensing Forum later in the year. She went on to suggest that the Licensing Team give consideration as to how questions around how premises were promoting non-alcoholic drinks and what range of non-alcoholic drinks they made available might be included on future Safety Thirst questionnaires.

The Chairman highlighted that this was very much in accordance with Licensing Principles around sensible drinking and choice. He thanked Club Soda for an extremely interesting presentation.

The Town Clerk undertook to circulate the presentation slides and an electronic copy of the ‘Nudging Pubs’ report to all Committee Members.