Tim Haggard left his high-flying accountancy job to find himself, five years later, at the forefront of the Bad Jelly brand. Phil Mellows reports
It's a simple enough idea. Student halls of residence kitchens have wobbled with it for years. But that's the thing that has made vodka jellies so difficult to sell. Just how do you market a product that people can throw together themselves with no more than a dose of vodka, hot water and a packet of Robinsons jelly?
Tim Haggard finds himself at the forefront of that challenge almost by accident. The licensee of the Imperial, a modern pub-cum-bar at the Fulham end of London's fashionable Kings Road, deserted accountancy to set up a brewery and maybe buy a few pubs to sell the beer in. Now the brewery is the least important corner of a business triangle in which Bad Jelly is the cutting edge.
The vodka jelly shots in plastic tubs were relaunched in four flavours - strawberry, orange, lime and blackcurrant - at the Pub & Bar Show last September following a run-in with drinks watchdog The Portman Group which had upheld complaints against the earlier version of the brand.
By Christmas a million shots had been shifted and Bad Jelly, its new packaging fully approved, was on sale in more than 1,000 outlets including major pub estates such as Punch, Laurel, SFI and Yates Group. At the beginning of 2002 Six Continents has the brand on trial, Scottish & Newcastle Retail is looking to get on board and Tim is talking to Tesco about introducing a four-pack for the take-home trade.
This year, a £1m marketing budget will build on the £500,000 launch spend. So it looks as though, against the odds, branded vodka jelly is being taken seriously.
The story behind Bad Jelly is a curious one. In 1997 Tim Haggard was a high-flier with top City accountants KPMG.
"I had reached my 30th birthday and, although I had been very successful and was a typical City chap, I decided I didn't want to work for anyone else any more," he said.
Tim's brother Andrew was also an accountant and felt the same. In fact, having trained as a chemical engineer, he'd always wanted his own brewery. So the brothers left their secure careers and went for it.
It was, however, not a brewery but a pub that gave them their start. The Imperial was an old Victorian hostelry which the Haggards bought and refurbished at a total cost of £500,000.
"We didn't want a standard pub but we did want to create a warm feel, somewhere I and my friends could feel comfortable," said Tim.
One part of the formula was to keep the drinks range down and not mess with fancy cocktails. The brewery, a five-barrel plant in Battersea run by Andrew, opened a year after the Imperial and its sole brand, Haggard's Horny Ale, occupies the pub's only handpump.
About the same time, it also started selling vodka jellies. Tim takes up the story:
"This guy just came off the street with them. We decided to give them a try and they worked really well, but six months later he went out of business.
"There was still a demand from our customers but we couldn't find the guy, so we had a go at making them ourselves at the brewery."
The original Bad Jelly soon acquired a cult following at the Imperial and other operators became interested, notably Punch.
But when Tim started marketing the drink further afield, The Portman Group inevitably took an interest, too.
Complaints brought by Greater Manchester Police that Bad Jelly appeared to be aimed at under-18s and did not display its alcoholic content clearly enough were upheld.
By then, Tim was already talking to The Portman Group about how the product could be made to comply with its code of practice. As well as making the packaging more adult and sophisticated, for instance shrink-wrapping the tub in silver to obscure the jelly contents, fins were incorporated into the lid.
Twisting the lid now severs the jelly from the sides of the container enabling customers to consume it in the accepted fashion - in one gulp.
"You used to see people scooping it out with their finger - not very sophisticated," said Tim.
Getting the product to this point, with all the quality assurance involved, took the best part of a year and, he admits it, "has been a struggle".
Now Tim is confident that he's got it right and even ventures that "it's here to stay".
"There is no reason why it shouldn't," he said. "It tastes good, it's female friendly and at 15 per cent ABV it isn't too strong in alcohol. The issue is to get customers to take it seriously.
"It is part of a shots market that is in growth, but I think you have to see Bad Jelly as more than just another drink. There is a sense of fun about it that you can't get from anything else."
Much of the marketing budget this year will be used to promote Bad Jelly in pubs. Sales support kits will include bandoleers, distorting mirrors, posters, table cubes and branded clothes for barstaff, all aimed at getting customers to discover different ways of drinking it.
The "body shot", in which jellies are sucked off a part of a neighbour's anatomy, is already popular and, as Tim points out, "you can't do that with any other kind of drink. The play value of vodka jellies is the message that we have to get across".
Here, he believes that Bad Jelly can benefit from being in the hands of a small company which is flexible enough to respond to the whims of the marketplace.
"The great thing is that we're not restricted in what we do," he said. "At KPMG there was a rule book for everything, and that is exactly what I want to get away from."
The relaunch of Bad Jelly has led to expansion. Barnaby Richardson has been taken on as marketing manager and Jeremy Pyers is sales manager.
Tim himself has stepped back somewhat from the sharp end of running the pub and is able to consider more strategic matters. While the main task of 2002 is to get Bad Jelly established in the marketplace, he is already looking at developing other products under the Bad Jelly company name and the whole ethos of the business is geared towards switching focus and exploiting anything that might turn up.
"Our advantage is that we can respond according to the way the business ebbs and flows and make the best of the opportunities that are in front of us. We can say 'let's have a go at that'."
It's all a far cry from accountancy, but Tim appreciates that the number-crunching is pretty useful to him now he's out on his own.
"At least we are good at managing the cash!"