What’s Your Pub’s Dry Sales Percentage? Why It Matters

Last updated: 7 April 2026

Most UK pub landlords are bleeding margin on dry goods without realising it — and the reason is almost always the same: they don’t know their dry sales percentage, let alone how it compares to their wet sales. You could be underpricing spirits, overselling weak-margin soft drinks, or running waste that’s silently killing your profit. This article walks you through exactly what dry sales percentage means, why it matters more than you think, and how to track it in a way that actually drives profit decisions.

What Is Dry Sales Percentage?

Dry sales percentage is the proportion of your total pub revenue that comes from non-alcoholic drinks, food, snacks, and other dry goods — expressed as a percentage. In practical terms: if you take £1,000 in a night, and £250 of that comes from soft drinks, coffee, snacks, and food, your dry sales percentage is 25%.

The term “dry goods” doesn’t mean they’re dried out. It’s just pub speak for everything that isn’t alcohol (wet goods). This includes:

• Soft drinks (colas, lemonades, juices, mixers)
• Hot drinks (tea, coffee, hot chocolate)
• Food and snacks (crisps, nuts, toasties, meals)
• Bottled water and energy drinks
• Cordials and syrups

Most pubs split their revenue tracking into two buckets: wet (alcohol) and dry (everything else). The reason this matters is that dry goods have completely different profit margins to alcohol. A pint of lager might give you 60–70% gross margin. A packet of crisps might only give you 40%. A cup of coffee might give you 75%. Without separating these, you’re flying blind on where your actual profit is coming from.

At The Teal Farm, we realised after tracking properly that our dry sales percentage was pulling down overall margin because we were pricing soft drinks at commodity prices when we should have been pricing them like premium convenience items. Once we separated wet and dry, the answer was obvious — and we adjusted within a week.

Why It Matters for Your Pub Profit

Here’s the thing: total revenue tells you nothing. Two pubs can have the same £5,000 weekly takings and completely different profit. One could be 70% wet, 30% dry. The other could be 85% wet, 15% dry. The second pub is far more profitable because alcohol has better margins than most dry goods.

But it’s more nuanced than that. Dry sales percentage matters because it reveals where your controllable margin is hiding. Wet sales are largely determined by your location, your demographic, and your competition. You can’t change that much without major risk. Dry goods are different — they’re low-risk, high-control. You can test pricing, swap products, reduce waste, and measure the impact within days.

Let me give you a real example. If your dry sales percentage is 25% of revenue, but your average dry margin is only 35%, you’re losing money on a quarter of your sales. Move that to 40% margin through smarter product mix, and you’ve instantly improved total pub margin by 1.25 percentage points. On a £5,000 week, that’s an extra £62.50 in gross profit — £3,250 annually. That’s real money.

The other reason this matters: pub labor monitoring and cost control are easier when you understand your revenue mix. If dry sales drop but wet stays flat, you know there’s a specific problem — maybe your coffee machine is broken, or you’ve run out of stock. If both drop together, it’s a traffic problem. Without separating them, you’re guessing.

UK Pub Dry Sales Benchmarks in 2026

What’s normal? That’s the first question every landlord asks, and the honest answer is: it depends. But here’s the data:

• High-street city centre pubs: 10–18% dry sales (mostly working lunch crowd, alcohol-focused evenings)
• Suburban family-friendly pubs: 20–35% dry sales (kids’ soft drinks, food sales, coffee during the day)
• Gastro-pubs with food offering: 25–40% dry sales (food is a major revenue driver)
• Rural village pubs: 15–25% dry sales (lower footfall, fewer food margins to leverage)
• Sports bars and live music venues: 12–20% dry sales (alcohol-heavy, quick turnover)

The average UK pub sits somewhere between 18–28% dry sales. But “average” is useless if you don’t know your own number. I’ve worked with pubs at 8% (trouble) and pubs at 45% (often means low alcohol sales, not a good sign). The real question isn’t what’s average — it’s: is your dry sales percentage healthy for your pub type?

Here’s what I’ve learned: dry sales percentage under 15% is a red flag. It usually means you’re not pushing non-alcoholic options hard enough, your food menu is weak, or your location doesn’t support it. Over 40% and you’re likely sacrificing wet sales volume for dry margin — which works only if your dry margin is genuinely strong (above 45%).

The sweet spot for most traditional pubs is 20–28%. That’s enough dry revenue to matter, but not so much that it’s cannibalising your wet sales or requiring heavy food operation.

How to Track Your Dry Sales Percentage Properly

This is where most pubs fail. They either don’t track it at all, or they try to track it manually in a spreadsheet and give up after two weeks.

The right way to track dry sales percentage requires just three things: a clear definition of what counts as dry, a way to separate it at point-of-sale, and a dashboard that shows you the number daily. No complexity needed — just clarity.

Step 1: Set Up Your EPOS Categories

If you’re using EPOS (which you should be), create separate categories for wet and dry. Don’t overthink it:

• Wet: all spirits, beers, wines, ciders, cocktails
• Dry: soft drinks, hot drinks, food, snacks, cordials

Some pubs create sub-categories within dry (coffee, soft drinks, food) which is even better, but the minimum is wet vs dry. Your EPOS should allow you to report on this in seconds. If it doesn’t, you need to switch. Systems like Square POS have this built in.

Step 2: Run Daily Revenue Reports

Every morning, pull a report showing yesterday’s wet sales total and dry sales total. Calculate the percentage: dry sales ÷ (wet sales + dry sales) × 100. That’s your dry sales percentage for the day.

At The Teal Farm, this takes 90 seconds. The moment we see it dip below 22%, we know to investigate — is stock low? Is the coffee machine playing up? Is footfall down? That’s actionable intelligence.

Step 3: Track Weekly and Monthly Trends

Don’t just look at daily numbers. Weekly trends tell you more: Is dry sales percentage stable week-to-week? Is it trending up or down? Monthly view shows seasonality (dry sales often rise in summer when people drink more soft drinks).

The best approach is to use a system that does this automatically. Spreadsheets work but require discipline. Manual entry means most landlords give up. How to Improve Your Dry Margin Without Losing Sales

Once you’re tracking dry sales percentage, the next question is: how do you make it work harder for you?

1. Price Soft Drinks Like Premium Convenience Items

This is the biggest opportunity most pubs miss. A cup of instant coffee costs you about 15p to make. You’re selling it for £2.50. That’s 94% margin. But a pint of Stella costs you £1.20 and sells for £4.50 — that’s 73% margin. Yet most pubs underprice soft drinks because they think of them as commodities.

Soft drinks are convenience items. People don’t shop around — they pay what the menu says. You can charge £2.80 for a coffee, £1.80 for a cola, and no one blinks. Test it. Raise prices 30p on soft drinks for two weeks. You’ll lose maybe 5% volume. Your margin goes up 15%. That’s a win.

2. Reduce Waste and Stock Shrinkage

Most pubs lose 8–15% of dry goods to waste, spillage, or stock shrinkage. That’s margin you’re literally throwing away. A proper stock-take system catches this immediately and forces accountability. Use a pub stock take template that tracks opening stock, purchases, sales, and closing stock. The difference tells you waste. Most landlords find £50–£200 monthly in hidden losses once they start tracking.

3. Swap Low-Margin Products for High-Margin Ones

Look at your dry sales breakdown. If you’re selling £200 weekly in crisps and nuts at 35% margin, but only £80 weekly in coffee at 85% margin, you’re prioritising the wrong product. Reduce crisp/nut shelf space. Promote coffee harder. Train staff to upsell hot drinks to every customer. Within a month, you’ve shifted mix toward higher-margin dry goods.

4. Bundle Dry with Wet

Don’t sell them separately. Offer a pint + crisp combo at a small discount. Offer a spirit + mixer at a fixed price. This increases dry sales percentage because customers are buying dry as part of a bundle, not choosing between wet and dry.

The Hidden Mistakes Killing Your Dry Margin

After 15 years running pubs and watching dozens of landlords struggle with margin, here are the patterns I see repeatedly:

Mistake 1: Not Separating Wet and Dry Revenue at All

You take £4,500 on a Friday night and think “good night.” But maybe it was 80% wet and 20% dry. Compared to Wednesday at £2,800 (60% wet, 40% dry), Friday was actually lower-margin revenue, even though the number was bigger. You can’t optimise what you don’t measure.

Mistake 2: Pricing Soft Drinks Based on Cost Plus Markup

If a cola costs you 30p and you add 50% margin, you’re selling it for 45p. That’s insane. Soft drinks should be priced by what the market will bear, not by cost. Same with hot drinks. Charge £2.50–£3.00 per coffee regardless of cost — the cost is almost irrelevant because volume is stable.

Mistake 3: Overstocking Slow-Moving Dry Goods

You buy 20 bottles of elderflower presse because they looked nice in a supplier’s catalogue. You sell two. The rest sits in your cellar for three months and you eventually bin them. That’s cash tied up in inventory with zero return. Order only what you’ve proven sells. Track it for four weeks before you buy bulk.

Mistake 4: Ignoring Food Waste

Food is part of dry sales. If you’re running a kitchen, waste is your biggest margin killer. A well-run kitchen runs 8–12% waste. A poorly run one runs 20%+. The difference between those two is pure margin you control with simple systems: portion control, inventory discipline, and proper FIFO (first in, first out) stock rotation.

Understanding your pub’s dry sales percentage is the foundation of smart margin management. It’s not complicated — it’s just a number you need to see every day. Once you’re tracking it, the opportunities become obvious. You’ll spot weak products, pricing gaps, and waste that you never saw before. And because dry goods are low-risk to experiment with, you can test changes and measure the impact within days.

The landlords I know who run the tightest margins all have one thing in common: they track this number relentlessly. They know exactly what their dry percentage is, what it should be, and why it’s different if it shifts. That’s not luck. That’s discipline.

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