There’s trouble brewing with PESTEL

Last week the UK chancellor unveiled his budget. The general consensus seems to be that it wasn’t a particularly exciting budget with the chancellor playing safe on most things.

What has caught the public eye though is the announcement that duty on cider (an apple based alcoholic drink) would increase by 10% above inflation. This would add approximately 5p to a litre bottle of cider. This has upset the cider drinkers and thousands have joined facebook groups hoping to get the decision reversed.

We mentioned the C&C group in a previous blog about spreadsheets. The C&C group own the Magners cider brand which is one of the best known cider brands in the UK.

The change in duty imposed by the chancellor is a classic case of how the “P” (Political) in PESTEL can impact on a company. Magners has reacted quickly to this though by launching  a press campaign saying that they will cover the increase in duty and will not increase their prices.

The C&C group may meet the “P” again soon though as there is discussion about the Scottish government introducing minimum unit pricing for alcohol in order to try to curb the health problems involving alcohol that are present in Scotland. The C&C group dominates the Scottish lager market with the brand Tennents.

So, if somebody asks you what is the link between cider, lager and PESTEL you now know the answer.