1698 – A tale of two halves
Company year of founding: 1698 Location: Kent Turnover: £167 million Number of staff: 1,700 Generation of business: 13th
Who started your business, and why? It’s a long story! The origins of the business date back to the time of King Stephen in 1147. An Abbey was built in Faversham, and the community brewery was moved to our site, which is a natural source of spring water. The brewery was run as a community collective operation until 1698, when the mayor of the town bought it to run as a family business. What’s been the biggest threat to your business over the centuries? Death and taxes! Death because two critical people died at very challenging times – my great-great grandfather died literally on the eve of the first world war, which sent the company into a bit of a tailspin. And then my grandfather died in 1961 at the time of a very punitive tax regime, which led to consolidation of the business during the 1960s. And taxes because our sector – alcohol and hospitality – have generally been overtaxed over the years. What changes in consumer behaviour are you observ- ing in your industry? How is this affecting how you run the business? Consumer behaviour is changing all the time, and we’ve had to continually adapt. In the 33 years I’ve been in the business we’ve moved from a typical pub being male-dominated and smoky, with not much food, to a premium environment with great accommodation and great food. The longer-term picture is that people are drinking less alcohol now but demand higher quality. Brand trends are driven essentially by authenticity – they want to know the back-story to the brand – and family-run businesses like ours can do well in that environment. How do you balance preserving tradition and heritage with the need to innovate and remain competitive? We’re extremely proud of our heritage and some of the amazing pubs we’ve run for centuries – about 200 of which
are listed buildings. We’re using the same source of water, still buying 80% of our hops locally, in the same physical location for hundreds of years. We want the heritage to speak for itself. People often ask me why Shepherd Neame has survived when so many other brewers have failed. We’re certain- ly not bigger, we’ve got great assets but not necessarily better than others, and many other brewers have quality beers. I can only suggest that somewhere within these four walls there is a mentality of strong independence. The community remains at the heart of the business. The core DNA of Shepherd Neame is the people of the Faversham brewery, and there is a collective responsibility for making the business succeed. It’s not just top-down leadership, but a collective die-hard mentality that will think for the long-term and see you through challenges in the short-term. How do you think your next generation will change the business? They will have to keep adapting to whatever the consumers demand, and the pace of that change will be increasingly rapid. The next generation needs to stay in the coal face, communicating with people, and understanding the zeitgeist and how it’s changing. Then modernising furiously to keep the business going. I have great confidence that the next generation will have those capabilities for change.
Jonathan Neame Shepherd Neame
‘1698 –A tale of two halves’ will conclude in the December 2024 edition of the FBUK magazine.
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