Food plays major part in brewer’s strategy

Middleton brewery and pub operator JW Lees is planning to open 10 new sites in 2012 — in MD William Lees-Jones’s 10th year in charge of the family-run business.

Two pubs - one in Worsley and one in Warrington - have been added to the estate, Mr Lees-Jones revealed.

He added: “We have an acquisition strategy based on a wider geographic strategy. Going forward our plans centre on restaurant pubs.

“The majority of our existing estate are what I would call drinking pubs, but the industry has been changing for a good few years now and businesses like ours have to reflect those changes.”

While J W Lees is intent on acquiring pubs, it also closed 12 last year, including three in the Hollinwood-Failsworth area.

Mr Lees-Jones admitted the recession “presents an opportunity”: “We can afford to buy 10 pubs because the property market is struggling,” he said

The business employs 1,000 people and has a portfolio of 166 properties with a record turnover of £56 million in the year to April, 2012