Whitbread’s Brewery

Whitbread is a British multinational hotel and restaurant company headquartered in Houghton Regis, England. The business was founded as a brewery in 1742, and had become the largest brewery in the world by the 1780s.

The business was formed in 1742 when Samuel Whitbread formed a partnership with Godfrey and Thomas Shewell and acquired a small brewery at the junction of Old Street and Upper Whitecross Street and another brewhouse for pale and amber beers in Brick Lane, Spitalfields. Godfrey Shewell withdrew from the partnership as Thomas Shewell and Samuel Whitbread bought the large site of the derelict King's Head brewery in Chiswell Street in 1750. The new brewery was for the specific production of porter, and was renamed the Hind Brewery after the Whitbread family coat of arms.

While not the first to discover Porter production, Whitbread was the first to exploit it commercially on a large scale. This coincided with an increase in beer consumption in the UK, following regulations to limit the sale of gin owing to the excesses of the Gin Craze. By 1758 production at Chiswell street was 65,000 barrels and the firm had become the largest firm of Porter brewers in the UK. From the outset, Whitbread was the leading financial partner, and solely responsible for management, and in 1761, Whitbread acquired Shewell's share of the business for £30,000.

By the 1780s Whitbread had become the largest brewery in the world. In 1796 the company produced 202,000 barrels of porter. The firm struggled after the death of Samuel Whitbread Sr, and saw ownership transfer to his son, also called Samuel Whitbread. The company adopted the name Whitbread & Co Ltd in 1799.

By the 1810s, Samuel Whitbread Jnr had brought in several new investment partners including his cousin Jacob Whitbread and the Master Brewer John Martineau (four of his descendants would later sit on the board of Whitbread, including John Edmund Martineau). In 1812, the company merged with the Martineau Brewery holdings and by 1816, leadership was shared between William Henry Whitbread (Samuel Whitbread Jnrs son) and John Martineau, who died in an industrial accident in a yeast vat in the brewery in 1834. By 1870, the company had begun producing bottled beers for sale and continued to expand production. On 24th July 1889, the company become a registered limited liability company.

By 1905, the Chiswell Street brewery reached its largest extent and annual production throughout the company breweries had reached nearly 700,000 barrels. Production decreased during the First World War with Whitbread brewing over 575,000 barrels in 1917.

In the 1920s and 1930s, the company bought out several other brewers, including the Forest Hill Brewery and its pubs, and later the Kent Brewery Frederick Leney & Sons, with 130 of its pubs. The company was also reorganised under the leadership of Sir Sydney Neville and introduced new ales, including Double Brown ale. Whitbread ended regular production of porter in 1940 due to its declining popularity and a need to rationalise its product range following Second World War damage to its brewery sites. 565 Whitbread pubs were also extensively damaged in the war, primarily during the Blitz.

The company was first listed on the London Stock Exchange in 1948 following a decision by the principal owners to take the company public under the direction of WH (Bill) Whitbread. The next three decades saw Whitbreads merged with over a dozen other regional breweries, including Tennant Brothers of Sheffield in 1961 and Brickwoods in 1971. Between 1961 and 1971, Whitbread's output increased from 46 to 160 million imperial gallons (2.1 to 7.4 million hectolitres) and it became Britain's third-largest brewer by output.

In 1971, Whitbread inaugurated the Whitbread Book Awards. The next year, Whitbread became the initiating sponsor of the Whitbread Round the World Race, a sailing yacht race around the world held every three years. Whitbread sponsored the race until 2001. In 1973, the company purchased Long John International, a Scottish distiller whose brands included Laphroaig whisky and Plymouth gin. Later spirit acquisitions, also included the distiller James Burrough and the brand Beefeater Gin which was later sold.

Whitbread acquired a 20% stake in TVS for £6.5M from European ferries in April 1984. By 1982, the company turnover exceeded £1 billion for the first time. In 1984, Samuel Charles Whitbread became chairman and a reorganisation of the company took place into separate divisions; the spirits arm, including Laphroaig was sold to Allied Distillers in 1989.

The company diversified into other hospitality holdings and invested in new ventures in the 1980s and 1990s, including Beefeater, Pizza Hut, Berni Inns, Heineken Steak Bars and TGI Fridays. In the early 1990s, Whitbread was required to sell almost 2,500 pubs, as a result of the 1992 Supply of Beer (Tied Estate) orders.

In July 1996, Whitbread purchased the Pelican Group (comprising 110 restaurants under the Dôme, Mamma Amalfi and, primarily, Café Rouge brands) for £133m, and in November 1996, Whitbread acquired the restaurant group BrightReasons (owner of brands including Bella Pasta and Pizzaland) for £46m.

In 2001, Whitbread decided to sell all its breweries and brewing interests (Whitbread Beer Company) to Interbrew, now known as InBev. Whitbread-branded alcoholic beverages are still available in the UK, such as canned Whitbread bitter, but these are not produced by InBev, but rather under licence by other producers. InBev controls the use of the Whitbread brand and the hind's head logo for use on beverages. In 2002 Whitbread sold its pub estate, known as the Laurel Pub Company, to Enterprise Inns, and sold its Pelican and BrightReasons restaurant groups for £25m to Tragus Holdings (later renamed Casual Dining Group). The Whitbread & Co brewery building at 52 Chiswell Street in London still survives, although beer ceased to be brewed there in 1976 and it is now a conference and events venue. Still named "The Brewery", it was part of the Earls Court and Olympia Group from 2005 to 2012, when it was subsequently sold to a private investor.

In 2005, it moved its core operations from CityPoint in central London, to Oakley House in Luton, and then, in 2006, to larger offices at Whitbread Court in Dunstable. In 2006, it went on to sell 239 of its 271 Beefeater and Brewers Fayre sites to Mitchells & Butlers, who rebranded them into Harvester, Toby Carvery and a selection of other brands.

In 2018, Whitbread faced pressure from two of its largest shareholders, hedge fund Sachem Head and activist group Elliott Advisers, to break itself up by splitting off the Costa Coffee chain, the theory being the individual businesses would be worth up to 40% more than the current market capital value. On 25 April 2018, Whitbread announced its intention to demerge Costa. On 31 August 2018, it announced that The Coca-Cola Company had agreed to buy Costa Coffee for £3.9bn.

In September 2020, the company announced that they would be cutting jobs, warning that 6,000 staff could lose employment. The company blamed the cuts on a slump in hotel guest numbers since the beginning of the UK's lockdown in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.