Union Courtroom, 22 Union RoadLondonSW4 6JPUnited KingdomTelephone: (+44) 20-7819-6400Fax: (+44) 20-7627-8850Web website: http://www.whittard.co.uk

Public Firm Included: 1886Staff: 488Gross sales: £37.4 million ($59.84 million) (2003)Inventory Exchanges: LondonTicker Image: WOCNAIC: 445299 All Different Specialty Meals Shops

Whittard of Chelsea Plc seems lastly to have discovered the appropriate mix for its rising chain of tea and low outlets. The London-based firm, which originated as a tea dealer within the Eighteen Eighties, operates greater than 100 specialty outlets all through the UK. The corporate additionally operates boutique outlets in main shops world wide, together with in Japan and, in america, via Marshall Discipline’s. The corporate’s personal shops, which common 100 sq. ft of promoting area with a purpose to protect a sense of intimacy and high quality, inventory greater than 50 blended and single property teas, in addition to practically 20 espresso varieties, and a spread of scorching chocolate and different drink sorts. The Whittard outlets additionally promote teapots, cups and saucers, and different china and repair associated to tea and low, and many of the designs offered within the shops are unique to the corporate. Along with its main shops, the corporate operates some 20 outlet outlets. Whittard additionally operates a small variety of Excessive Avenue-based “T-zone” tea bars in an try to recapture market share from the rising numbers of espresso outlets. The corporate has lengthy operated a thriving mail-order enterprise for its teas and coffees; a rising proportion of its mailorder gross sales come from its Web web page. Traded on the London Inventory Change, the corporate is led by chairman and main shareholder William Hobhouse, and CEO Richard Rose.

Shopping for the Greatest within the Eighteen Eighties

Whittard of Chelsea was initially based in London in 1886 by Walter Whittard as a commodity and retail buying and selling home for teas from the British colonies. The store, on Mincing Lane close to Fleet Avenue, quickly established a fame for its high-quality teas by adhering to Whittard’s motto: “Purchase the Greatest.”

Whittard expanded his store choices on the daybreak of the twentieth century with the introduction of a collection of espresso blends as effectively. He additionally was joined by sons Richard (Dick) and Hugh Whittard, who later took over operation of the household enterprise after their father’s loss of life in 1935. Regardless of the tough financial local weather of the time, Whittard managed to develop, notably by introducing a mail-order enterprise. Orders shortly got here in from all around the United Kingdom, and even from overseas, as guests to the UK started requesting shipments of the corporate’s teas. The corporate additionally opened its personal warehouse close by, on Mansell Avenue.

The years of World Warfare II positioned a brand new burden on the corporate. All provides of tea, the British nationwide drink, have been requisitioned for the period, and in 1940, the rationing program instituted a restrict of two ounces per individual per week. But bombing raids that very same 12 months destroyed each the store and the warehouse. The corporate misplaced not solely its whole inventory, but additionally its brewing and mixing gear.

The Whittards shortly relocated, to Fulham Highway in Chelsea, and by 1941, the corporate was again in enterprise.

Wartime restrictions, nevertheless, made it unattainable for the brothers to acquire new gear. Finally the Whittards have been in a position to find a used espresso roaster. For its tea mixing, the Whittards have been compelled to depend on old school strategies.

Within the many years following the warfare, the corporate, now often known as Whittard of Chelsea, shifted the main focus of its consideration on its retail aspect. For this effort, Whittard started packaging its teas in tins designed for the corporate and launched a wide range of different tea- and coffee-related objects, together with china companies and meals. Whittard additionally started selling its personal tea blends, together with scented and fruit-based teas.

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The transition to retail outlets took on higher drive within the early Nineteen Seventies, when Richard Whittard offered his stake within the household retailer and enterprise to David Gyle-Thompson in 1973. Thompson maintained the unique retailer, then added two extra Londonarea shops over the subsequent twenty years. On the finish of the Eighties, nevertheless, Thompson introduced in a brand new managing director, William Hobhouse, with the intention of creating Whittard of Chelsea into a significant U.Okay. specialty retailer.

Simply 30 years outdated on the time, Hobhouse already had made his fortune in the UK’s retail market. After stints working for the Argyll Group and Related British Meals, Hobhouse joined a small retail operation, Tie Rack, within the early Eighties. From simply 15 shops, Hobhouse, who grew to become managing director and a significant shareholder, quickly expanded the corporate utilizing a franchise mannequin. By the mid-Eighties, there have been greater than 150 Tie Rack outlets working in eight international locations. In 1987, after Tie Rack was listed on the London Inventory Change, Hobhouse offered out his stake, then price within the thousands and thousands of kilos, and started in search of new challenges.

Quick Monitor for Development within the Early Nineties

Whittard of Chelsea, now led by Hobhouse as managing director and Thompson as chairman, turned to enterprise capitalists for the funding—about £750,000—required to purchase out the rest of the corporate from the Whittard household and to pursue their objective of increasing it into a world retailer. Within the course of, Hobhouse acquired about one-third of the enterprise together with his personal funding of some £100,000.

Whittard began small at first, opening two check outlets in Bathtub and Oxford, to see if the Whittard retailer idea would assist a nationwide roll-out. The Whittard system concerned adapting the corporate’s “Purchase the Greatest” custom to an prolonged vary of high-value teas and low. As a part of that effort, the corporate promoted so-called “single property” teas, likened to the Bordeaux wine estates. Whittard additionally started promoting “classic” teas, which, like their wine counterparts, labeled teas in response to 12 months. In line with its upscale market purpose, the brand new Whittard shops have been saved small, averaging 100 sq. ft in gross sales area.

The success of the brand new shops’ first season, notably in the course of the winter holidays, inspired the corporate to maneuver forward with a full roll-out of the idea. By 1990, the corporate had raised one other £1 million from traders and started opening new shops at a fast tempo. One 12 months later, the corporate already boasted greater than 16 shops.

Over the subsequent half-decade, Whittard added greater than 80 shops, topping 100 in 1996. Though most of those shops have been in England, with the bulk within the London and southeast areas, Whittard additionally had gone worldwide, including shops in France, Poland, Iceland, and, particularly, Japan, the place the teadrinking tradition had quickly deserted conventional inexperienced teas to embrace the “superior” British blends. Whereas the corporate maintained possession of its shops in its U.Okay. growth effort, it turned to the franchise and licensing format, in addition to the position of “nook” shops in shops, for a lot of its abroad progress.

Whittard’s gross sales and earnings rose accordingly. After shedding a bit lower than £300 million in 1992, the corporate turned a revenue of greater than £230 million the next 12 months, with gross sales topping £7 million. By the center of the last decade, Whittard claimed a 12 p.c share of the UK’s specialty market—a small phase representing lower than 10 p.c of a bigger, billion-pound market dominated by generic store-bought teabags—in opposition to chief rival and dominant tea vendor R. Twining & Co. The corporate additionally maintained a robust mail-order enterprise, transport greater than 10,000 orders per day.

In 1996, Whittard went public, itemizing on the Different Funding Market (AIM), designed to offer liquidity to smaller corporations. The profitable launch enabled the corporate to boost greater than £8 million—some £6 million of which went to purchase out its preliminary monetary backers. Hobhouse’s personal stake within the firm had by then grown to be price greater than £6.5 million.

Buoyed by the success of the providing, Whittard then introduced plans so as to add 10 to fifteen new outlets per 12 months over the subsequent 5 years, doubling its U.Okay. operation. The corporate additionally started increasing its authentic retail format to incorporate shops that includes onsite espresso roasting, and others that includes their very own espresso bars. Regardless of the addition of this latter format, Whittard was later to be criticized for its lack of response as a brand new breed of espresso bar, represented by america’ Starbucks and Whitbread-backed Costa Espresso, had begun to seize a rising share of the British beverage price range.

Diversification on the Finish of the twentieth Century

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In 1997, Whittard’s quick progress enabled it to change its itemizing to the London Inventory Change’s major board. The corporate then introduced plans to speed up its progress, forecasting the addition of as much as 20 new shops per 12 months. Quite a few observers remained skeptical of the corporate’s progress plans, nevertheless, believing that even the nation’s bigger cities can be unable to assist greater than a single Whittard store.

Nonetheless, Whittard pushed forward with its growth, build up its variety of U.Okay. shops to almost 120 by 1998. The corporate additionally had pushed into a lot of new worldwide markets, together with Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Kuwait, Singapore, South Africa, and Chile. Within the meantime, the corporate had expanded its Japanese presence with the addition of 34 in-store boutiques in lots of the nation’s main shops.

Firm Views:

Whittard of Chelsea has been specialising within the most interesting teas, coffees and presents since 1886. We delight ourselves on our fame for high quality and innovation.

Walter Whittard, the agency’s founder, had a philosophy to “purchase the most effective.” The success of the Whittard product vary lies in an uncompromising angle in the direction of high quality of product and packaging.

On the similar time, Whittard started pursuing different retail alternatives. In 1997, the corporate launched a brand new retail idea, Kitchen Shops, which specialised in promoting upscale kitchen gear and merchandise. By 1998, the corporate had opened six of the brand new city-center shops. Nearer to its origins, Whittard additionally expanded with the launch of its personal Manufacturing unit Shops shops, which opened within the rising variety of buying facilities specialised in manufacturing unit outlet shops. Serving to to orchestrate this progress was new Managing Director Richard Knight.

The corporate additionally responded to the rising presence of the new-generation espresso bars by launching its personal associated idea, the so-called “T-zone” tea bar. But by then, Whittard’s fascination had been captured by a brand new and extremely promising market: the Web. In 1998, a member of the corporate’s administration staff, Petra Schenke, had determined to maneuver again to her native Germany with a purpose to kind her personal Web enterprise, Dita.de. Schenke turned to Whittard for her first consumer, providing to arrange an e-commerce website for the corporate. The location, Whittard .com, gave the impression to be an instantaneous success, with revenues rising by greater than 300 p.c in its first two years. Apparently, greater than 40 p.c of the corporate’s Web-based gross sales got here from america.

Within the meantime, Whittard’s retail progress appeared to have run out of steam. In 2000, the corporate started dismantling a part of its retail community, shedding a lot of shops, together with its failed Kitchen idea. As a substitute, inspired by the fast progress of the Web website, Whittard determined to base a part of its future progress on reinventing itself as a web-based retailer. In 2000, the corporate took management of its website from Dita.de, after which made headlines when it paid £1.2 million to amass a web-based “division retailer” devoted to U.Okay.-made luxurious items, Bestofbritish.com.

The corporate’s transition to the Web initially appeared promising, particularly after Bestofbritish introduced that it had boosted the variety of on-line manufacturers to greater than 70, together with such distinguished British names as Aston Martin, Jaguar, Duchy Originals, and Historic Royal Palaces. But the location remained a drain on the corporate’s funds, costing greater than £1.5 million per 12 months—whereas revenues barely topped £300,000. Complete firm losses amounted to £3 million for the corporate’s 2001 12 months. Nonetheless, the corporate’s core tea and low gross sales remained wholesome.

Refocused within the New Century

By September 2001, Whittard was compelled to drag the plug on its Web experiment. The corporate appeared unsure as to the right way to proceed for the long run, and introduced that it had begun entertaining takeover presents, together with a administration buyout provide led by Richard Knight. But, unable to generate an acceptable value, the corporate determined to stay unbiased. Following that call, Knight left the corporate, changed by Richard Rose, previously CEO of Dutch electrical group Hagemeyer, as CEO. Hobhouse then retired to the place of firm chairman.

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Rose promptly started repositioning the corporate to focus as soon as once more on its core tea and low merchandise. Amongst Rose’s aims was to increase the Whittard model past its personal retail retailer community and introduce its packaged merchandise into the UK’s supermarkets. By 2002, the corporate already had signed up two of the nation’s largest chains, Tesco and Sainsbury.

On the similar time, the corporate’s Web experiment had alerted the corporate to its reputation in america, and Whittard now shaped a partnership with Minneapolis-based division retailer group Marshall Discipline’s to introduce Whittard nook shops. The primary of those opened in Minneapolis in 2003 and proved to be a robust success, encouraging the corporate to increase its presence in america, notably with the introduction of its personal tea and low outlets. By then, the corporate was buoyed by rising gross sales, which neared £37.5 million for the 12 months, and a return to revenue progress. Underneath Rose, Whittard appeared to have discovered the appropriate brew to steer it into the brand new century.

Key Dates:

1886:Walter Whittard units up a tea commodity and retail store in London, earlier than increasing to incorporate espresso gross sales on the flip of the century.1935:After Whittard’s loss of life, sons Hugh and Richard take over the enterprise and add a mail-order enterprise.1940:The corporate warehouse and store are destroyed by bombs; the corporate strikes to Fulham Highway in Chelsea.1973:Richard Whittard turns over the operation of enterprise to David Gyle-Thompson, who provides two extra London-area shops.1988:Thompson hires William Hobhouse, who had efficiently expanded the Tie Rack retail chain, as managing director and the pair purchase out Whittard from the Whittard household.1990:After elevating enterprise capital to open two check shops, in Bathtub and Oxford, Whittard begins nationwide roll-out of tea and low outlets, including 80 shops by mid-decade.1996:Whittard of Chelsea goes public on London’s AIM market.1997:Whittard switches its itemizing to the London major board; the corporate launches Kitchen and Manufacturing unit Outlet retail codecs.1998:A former worker establishes a web-based e-commerce website for Whittard; the corporate unveils the “Tzone” tea bar format.2000:Whittard takes over the e-commerce website and decides to remodel itself into an Web firm, buying bestofbritish.com.2001:Whittard pulls the plug on the Web experiment; new CEO Richard Rose refocuses the corporate on its core tea and low retail choices, and begins rolling out the packaged Whittard model to U.Okay. supermarkets.2003:The corporate opens its first U.S.-based in-store nook store within the Marshall Discipline’s division retailer.

Principal Rivals

Whitbread Plc; Starbucks Espresso Co. U.Okay. Ltd.; Holland and Barrett Retail Ltd.; Lyndale Meals Ltd.; Crookes Healthcare Ltd.; Bettys and Taylors Group Ltd.; Ringtons Holdings Ltd.; Longslow Dairy Ltd.

Additional Studying

Aldrick, Philip, “Whittard Seeks Accomplice for American Tea Social gathering,” Day by day Telegraph, January 18, 2001.

Croft, Jane, “Whittard Pays Pound 1.2m for Luxurious Items Web site,” Monetary Instances, July 8, 2000, p. 15.

Goff, Sharlene, “Again on Monitor After Turning Focus Again to Major Brews,” Monetary Instances, June 28, 2003, p. 3.

Hopkins, Nic, “Whittard Revenue Filters By After Two Years,” Instances, September 13, 2002, p. 34.

Hyland, Anne, “Focus: Whittard,” Guardian, February 2, 2000, p. 28.

Robertson, David, “Whittard to Goal Starbucks with New Teashops in America,” Instances, September 6, 2003, p. 57.

—M.L. Cohen