The Big Interview: Martin Hartridge
It’s the latest, pleasing, twist to the story of Hartridges, the family soft-drinks company that owns the brand, and it’s especially
pleasing for its managing director, Martin Hartridge.
His great-grandfather Francis Hartridge bought the Hambledon brewery, along with three pubs, in 1882 and, like many brewers at the time, diversified into soft drinks and minerals a couple of years later.
Both arms of the business flourished until the bomb exploded. The brewhouse was flattened, but the minerals plant survived intact, forcing the decision to focus solely on soft drinks.
And despite the domination of the big two manufacturers — Coca-Cola Schweppes and Britvic — Hartridges is still going, and still serving the regional brewery pub estates that have been the bedrock of its trade for generations.
More than that, it has successfully expanded, not only into beer, but draught dispense and the off-trade, with its Celebrated range of traditional soft drinks going into Waitrose and Morrisons supermarkets.
A depot in Durham now gives the firm national distribution and, yes, Hartridges’ Celebrated soft drinks are even being exported.
“We won’t lose sight of the on-trade, this is an exciting time to be in pubs. But it shows we’re still innovating, and that’s the reason we’re still going — even though this isn’t the usual sort of business model any more,” says Martin Hartridge.
He has spent his entire working life in the family business. An early aspiration to go to university was snuffed out by his father’s unanswerable response: “What do you want to go there for?”
He started on the factory floor before moving across to sales and succeeded his father as managing director in 1997. Brother Christopher deals with the commercial side, as well as the new export business.
Paradoxically, perhaps, Martin combines a willingness to try new things not only with a sense of tradition but with a certain caution.
“We’re not a PLC,” he says. “It’s my money! So we’ve had to be conservative.”
Even so, a commitment to installing costly draught dispense has established Hartridges as third in the UK market, though “a long way back”, he admits.
“Post-mix is growing and gives us fantastic opportunities. There are so few doing it — just us, the big two and Cabana. People want perceived value for money and bigger servings and we have orange juice, an energy drink and a carbonated purified water all on the gun now.
“In the past 10 years technology has changed dramatically and draught quality is much higher than it used to be. But it’s not cheap to install — £1,500 for a two-bar pub and up to £10,000 for a big nightclub.
“Through our agents we’ve put draught in thousands of pubs, even into Scotland and northern England. People still haven’t heard of Hartridges up there, though, even if they’re drinking it.
“But although it’s a quality offer-ing we’ve got, nobody’s going to walk into a pub because they want Coke or Pepsi or Hartridges Cola. It’s the outlet, the food, the décor and the staff that people go to a pub for.
“People aren’t connoisseurs of soft drinks — as long as it looks good. And over the past five years pubs have got better at presentation. The trade has got the idea that people want longer drinks, and that they can charge a bit more for them.
“Perhaps the growth in the UK soft-drinks market has been slower than we expected,” he adds. “I think we were talking the talk but not walking the walk.”
Hartridges was an on-trade specialist before launching the Celebrated range, based on traditional recipes for ginger beer, root beer, cloudy lemonade and dandelion & burdock.
“One thing Hartridges has got is provenance,” says Hartridge. “We’ve been around a long time. I imagine we’re the only people selling a soft drink with our own name on the label. But the fact we’re a family business is a great strength abroad.”
And he seems a little surprised himself that the export business has taken off.
“The world’s a big place. Where do you start? But Christopher got to know five or six agents selling beer abroad and we found there was demand for a quintessential British product with provenance.
“Since last year we’ve gone into 10 or 12 countries including Ghana, Korea, Singapore, Japan, Russia, Poland and Germany. It’s still less than 10% of our volume but we’d like it to grow and we’re getting a lot of enquiries. We’ve had to change some of the labelling though. In Korea they call ginger beer ‘ginger brown’.”
The ginger beer is also going down well over here, thanks, says Hartridge, to the success of alcoholic ginger beers like Crabbie’s.
“Root beer also has potential — but not the American flavour. That’s like Germolene. We’ve Anglicised it and it’s selling well in the supermarkets.
“But we’re not really interested in coming up with new flavours. Britvic is always launching new J2O flavours and then dropping them.”
He’s also sceptical about whether there’s much of a market in pubs for these kind of drinks. “Everybody says they want an adult soft drink but, for me, colas are adult soft drinks.
Some managed pubs and restau-rants might stock a specialist product but it’s limited.”
The return to beer came about when Hartridge noticed the revived interest in cask ales.
A microbrewer in Hampshire, which remains anonymous, is brewing two beers for the company using original recipes “updated to appeal to the modern generation” — Alliance Best Bitter at 3.8% ABV and Batsman’s at 4.2% ABV. In three months they’ve found a spot on the bar in about 40 pubs around Hambledon.
Yet for all that, the spirit of the Hartridges business remains with its fellow family firms, the regional brewers.
“They’re the future of the industry,” declares Hartridge. “They’re the long-term planners and thinkers. They’ve been great to deal with over the generations and they’ve given us lots of opportunities. But you’ve still got to be good at what you do, you need to be professional.
“For them we provide an alternative to the ‘big two’ and their licensees appreciate that — they’re getting a choice. And I’m sure it will continue. As pubcos loosen the tie there are more opportunities for us too.”
As for the Hartridge family, he looks to his son Edward to carry on the tradition.
“He has his own business in London providing entertainment for weddings but he works for us one day a week. He’s learning the business and I’d like him to come into it.
“We’ll still be here in 50 years, I’m sure. We’ve had offers for the business — but not from Mr Coca-Cola yet. And to be honest we don’t want to be noticed by the big two. If they should see us as a threat they’ve got more muscle than us by about a billion times.”
Muscle, perhaps. But probably not the heart.
My kind of pub
“I’m a pub man, given the choice. Pubs have more atmosphere than restaurants.
“I use the White Lion at Soberton, Hampshire. It’s got good beers and pub grub and it’s three miles over the hill from where I live, so I can walk to it.
“I also like the Bakers Arms at Droxford, which was named Hampshire Dining Pub of the Year in the 2011 Good Pub Guide — and it happens to sell Hartridges.”
Key dates
1882
Francis Hartridge purchases Alliance Brewery in Hambledon for £2,000
1884
Launches range of soft drinks
1940
Bomb hits brewery. Soft-drinks plant saved
1976
Martin Hartridge starts working on Hartridges’ factory floor before moving into sales
1997
Becomes managing director
2008
Production moved out of old brewery to a new site in Hambledon
2009
Celebrated range launches
2010
Durham depot opens
2011
Hartridges starts exporting
2012
Hartridges-owned Alliance beers are brewed again for the first time since 1940
