Our Strategy
Our vision is to be the UK’s leading local pub company
Our strategy is to create a high-margin, highly cash-generative local pub company based on differentiated formats and a brand portfolio that is naturally balanced to appeal across a range of consumer segments.
Our strategy is centred around five key value drivers, enabling us to deliver on our long-term target of becoming the UK’s leading local pub company. These value drivers will leverage the strength of our market-leading pub operating model, increasing revenue and driving efficiencies, whilst building the basis of a reliable growth company.
Key Value Drivers
We are focused on relentless execution and delivering on our market-leading pub operating model by balancing revenue growth, cost efficiency, and guest satisfaction across our estate.
We aim to set the standard in operational excellence, ensuring high-quality service, effective cost management, and an outstanding guest experience.
Case studies
Great guest satisfaction
The Turing Key in Bletchley is an excellent example of setting standards for operational excellence and great guest satisfaction.
We have identified the opportunity to tailor our pub portfolio into five well-defined pub formats that meet consumer needs across different segments.
We expect these unique propositions will drive increased consumer penetration as we roll out these formats across our estate.
Case studies
Introducing Marston’s Grandstand
Our innovative new Locals Sport pub format, bringing the big event atmosphere to your local.
We are a people-led business but we believe there is significant opportunity to complement what we do with technology.
To drive revenue, we will improve the guest journey and plan to deliver personalised, data-led interactions over time. On costs, our digital strategy focuses on labour productivity tools and AI to optimise stock management.
Case studies
Enhanced Order & Pay
A key component in our digital transformation journey, enhancing guest experience and sales.
One of our biggest strengths is the balance between our different management models, particularly the balance between Managed and Partnership.
These formats are incredibly flexible and a key means of delivering our five distinct consumer-focused formats and our market-leading operating model.
30%
Managed Pubs
58%
Partnership Pubs
12%
Tenanted Pubs
Our managed pubs are owned and operated by Marston’s employees. As well as offering great guest experiences, they are our engine room of innovation and have a critical role to play in our format rollout.
Our Partnership pubs are operated by self-employed, entrepreneurial licensees. The Partnership model enables our Pub Partners to share the risks and manage some of the biggest costs involved in running a pub, such as utilities, whilst taking a weekly share of the total revenue. All of our Pub Partners are supported by our Pub Support Centre, offering expert guidance and support in core areas.
Over time, we aim to leverage Marston’s significant operational strengths, established brand, and scale to unlock synergies in targeted acquisitions.
By applying our proven and market-leading pub operating model and integrating digital capabilities, we expect to drive synergies from acquisitions that align with our strategic vision.
Key Enablers
Our strategy and business model are underpinned by three core enablers which support and help drive our strategic priorities and reflect Marston’s unique culture and how we operate responsibly and ethically.
We are a performance driven business powered by our People. Our unique culture and environment empower our teams to go the extra mile to deliver great results and strive to be the best they can be. Nurturing and developing our performance driven teams is fundamental to the execution of our strategy and a focus for the year ahead is reviewing our behaviour framework and values to ensure they align with and support the strategic plan.
We are dedicated to delivering best-in class health and safety standards that are clearly understood and implemented across the entire business, irrespective of the pub operating model. These involve adopting a rigorous safety culture and ensuring commitment from our teams through training, support and reward, with achievement of key safety KPIs being a fundamental underpin of all operational incentive schemes.
The key component parts of our company purpose ‘Shared Good Times’ are providing our guests with the best products and services. One of the ways in which we do this is to work with our supply chain and key supply partners to ensure the food and drink options we offer to our guests are sector leading. Our commercial marketing and procurement teams work hard to develop and maintain productive relationships with our suppliers to ensure the product range we offer continues to meet the ever-changing needs of our guests and that the products within our supply chain are consistently of a high standard, both in terms of quality and sustainability.
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Great guest satisfaction
The Turing Key in Bletchley is an excellent example of setting standards for operational excellence and great guest satisfaction.
During the year, the team have gone from strength to strength, maintaining and growing their Reputation score to over 900 at the end of the reporting year, whilst continuing to grow sales during each period.
Crowned ‘Guest Obsessed Pub of the Year’ at our internal Pub of the Year awards in November 2024, the team have demonstrated a clear upward trajectory of their guest satisfaction Reputation score and are continuously recognised for providing a warm welcome and great service that makes our guests feel valued. The team have in-depth knowledge of the pub’s facilities, events, drinks and food menu, and are able to provide welcome recommendations to all our guests.
Introducing Marston’s Grandstand
In line with its strategy to create differentiated pub formats that appeal across a range of consumer segments, Marston’s has opened its first Grandstand Locals Sport pub at The Gospel Oak, in Tipton in the West Midlands, at an exclusive launch event hosted by football legend John Barnes.
Bringing the unrivalled atmosphere of a stadium match or event, and the next best thing to actually being there, the innovative new pub format delivers market-leading technology including new 3-metre-long, and 1.8-metre-tall screens, state-of-the-art sound systems and flexible tiered seating to guarantee a good view. Meanwhile outdoor bars with big screens and the all-new Marston’s ‘Order & Pay’ app allow customers to order from their tables, ensuring they never missing a minute of the action.
Enhanced Order & Pay
Digital transformation is critical to enhancing both the guest experience and operational efficiency across the estate. Central to this agenda is the rollout of our new Order & Pay platform, which launched in March 2025 and is now live across more than 750 pubs, with full estate coverage expected by the end of the financial year. Initial results have been extremely encouraging. The platform supports upselling and premiumisation and already we are seeing over 10% uplift in revenue per transaction. It also improves speed of service and convenience, particularly in high-volume venues, further strengthening guest satisfaction.
With the peak trading period ahead, Order & Pay is especially well-suited to summer months, offering guests a more seamless experience in pub gardens and outdoor areas, where trips to the bar are naturally less convenient.