Britain’s pubs, clubs, restaurants and music venues are at the heart of our economy, supporting millions of jobs, and driving crucial footfall to our local towns and high streets. But with rising rent, wages, business rates and energy bills, margins for these venues are being squeezed to near breaking point.
Some of these costs are out of your hands, but your energy doesn’t have to be. With the right business energy supplier behind you, you can take back control of your energy use and make meaningful savings that can be pumped straight back into your business.
Business rates have only been cut for pubs, clubs and music venues
At the start of 2026, industry body UKHospitality warned that up to six hospitality venues a day could close unless something was done about spiralling business rates. Then in July of this year, new Prime Minister Andy Burnham announced a 20% cut to business rates for pubs, clubs and live music venues from April 2027 – a package worth around £100 million a year, expected to save the typical pub roughly £1,100, on top of the 15% relief announced earlier in the year.
However, restaurants, cafés and hotels were left out of the rates relief altogether. So, if you run a restaurant, you’re carrying the same rising costs as everyone else – without the tax break your local pub just picked up.
What challenges are hospitality businesses facing with their energy bills?
Hospitality and leisure businesses operate in a high-cost, demand-driven environment with tight margins and fluctuating energy usage. Whether you’re running a local restaurant, pub, hotel or music venue, you’re likely dealing with long operating hours, unpredictable footfall and the ongoing challenge of rising wages, rent and the cost of goods.
These businesses require reliable energy solutions that deliver predictable pricing, provide clear visibility and support ESG objectives – helping protect profitability while maintaining high customer experience standards.
Utilita Business is well aware of the challenges that hospitality businesses face when it comes to their energy bills, including:
- Spiralling energy bills and volatile market prices making it difficult to budget costs.
- Risk of outages or disruptions impacting customer experience and revenue.
- Limited visibility of energy usage, making it hard to identify inefficiencies.
- Complexity of managing energy across multiple sites around the country.
- Time constraints and lack of resource to manage contracts, billing, and suppliers.
- Pressure to demonstrate sustainability credentials to customers and investors.
How can Utilita support hospitality venues with their business energy costs?
Utilita Business can support hospitality businesses in a number of ways. Our deep-rooted experience with businesses like yours means we can help you reduce and control energy costs across high-consumption operations, including lighting, heating and refrigeration.
Plus, our fixed-rate energy agreements provide cost certainty, helping you budget more effectively throughout the year. Whether you’re navigating fluctuations in footfall, seasonal weather patterns, major events such as the World Cup, or peak trading periods like Valentine’s Day, bank holidays and Christmas, you’ll have the confidence of knowing your energy rates won’t change.
With many hospitality businesses operating as part of a larger group or franchise network, our expertise in managing multi-site operations is invaluable. Utilita Business can help you consolidate your usage and compare sites to identify where you can make savings. If you have 10 or more sites, our bespoke billing process ensures you receive your bills in the way that works best for you.
With these points in mind, we know from our work with other hospitality businesses where we can help ease the pain of high costs, including:
- Predictable, transparent pricing with fixed contract options to support budgeting, margin control, and seasonal demand fluctuations.
- Reliable energy supply so operations remain uninterrupted at all times.
- Simple, low-disruption switching and contract management, reducing admin hours.
- Dedicated account management, with consolidated multi-site billing and reporting.
- The My Utilita Portal to monitor usage, identify inefficiencies, and optimise costs.
- Support for sustainability and ESG goals that help your business get to net zero.
Hospitality businesses are part of the fabric that makes Britain, and we need to do everything we can to support them. This is why measures such as the government’s business rates relief are welcome – but it’s not enough on its own to save every hospitality business.
To make sure that there is still a Red Lion in your local village, a busy bar on the high street and a grungy music venue in your nearest city, everyone needs to look at every aspect of their business.
How can you switch to Utilita Business Energy?
For hospitality businesses looking to switch to Utilita, you’re only a few simple steps away from taking back control over your business energy and cutting costs.
If you’re a small to medium hospitality business, here’s how you can switch:
- Get a quick, no-obligation small business energy quote in minutes. This is all done online, and we’ll just need a few of your details.
- Tell us a little bit about your property. This way we can tailor your energy quote to the unique needs of your business. Not every business is the same.
- Choose a tariff that suits you and your business best. You can decide from a few tailored options we provide.
- We’ll prepare a contract for you to sign online, making the process quick and easy.
Once you’re happy with your tariff and your contract has been signed, just sit back and relax while we take care of the switch for you. This is usually completed within five working days.
Are you a larger business with multiple sites? No problem! Simply request a callback so we can talk to you more about your business and discuss the best energy set up for you.