Viennetta is produced at the Wall’s factory in Gloucester. Wall’s is owned by Unilever, the Anglo-Dutch consumer goods giant. Unilever is the largest producer of ice cream in the world, and also manufactures the Magnum, Solero and Ben & Jerry’s brands.
Sales of Viennetta totalled £328 million worldwide in 2013, according to Euromonitor.
Viennetta is an ice cream imitation of the French millefeuille cake. Unilever saved money by adapting the product from a Belgian Cornetto recipe. The packaging was based on a German Christmas log manufactured by Langnese, another Unilever subsidiary. There are no imitations of Viennetta because the process by which it is produced is protected by patent.
A French millefeuille cake
Viennetta was introduced from 1982. It was originally sold only in the United Kingdom, and was a Christmas-only special. The launch was successful, and Viennetta was introduced as a year-round product from 1984. Such was its popularity that Unilever did not have to lobby supermarkets to stock the product, but instead the supermarkets lobbied them. Unilever was consequently able to achieve excellent margins on the product, which the supermarkets often sold as a loss-leader.
According to Professor Geoffrey Jones, Viennetta introduced the concept of the branded ice cream dessert. For the first time, ice cream was the main item of a dessert, and not just an accompaniment to something else on the bowl or plate.
Perhaps the product’s vaguely European-sounding name was considered sophisticated in the early 1980s. Viennetta’s star may be rising worldwide, but it has a reduced presence in its native UK. In 2014 value sales were far below what they were in 1990, not even accounting for inflation.
Bakers Oven was the largest bakery chain in Britain.
Greggs is a fast food chain with more outlets in Britain than McDonald’s. Specialising in value and convenience, outlets sell sandwiches, but remain best known for “treat” food: sausage rolls, pasties, vanilla slices etc.
Greggs’ dominance in the UK was established when it acquired Bakers Oven, its major rival bakery chain, in 1994. Bakers Oven was about 20 percent more expensive than Greggs, had more of a focus on in-store “baking” and typically offered substantial seating, which Greggs usually lacked.
Bakers Oven
Bakers Oven was a concept developed in 1976 by one of the largest British bread makers, Allied Bakeries. Allied Bakeries also owned other bakery chain fascias, with names such as City Bakeries, Martins and Strathdee, and boasted of operating a store on almost every British high street. ABF owned many prime high street sites; a legacy of local bakery chain acquisitions. They had first attempted to create a nationwide bakery chain in 1968 with the Lite Bite shops.
The claim that the first Bakers Oven was located in Barnard Castle, Durham is untrue. The location was previously operated by Carricks, a Newcastle upon Tyne bakery chain. and it was not rebranded to the Bakers Oven name until 1989.
Bakers Oven rode the rise in demand for healthier bread in the late 1980s, although it never matched the quality of genuine bakers’ produce. It became the largest bakery chain in the UK, however by the early 1990s it had began to consistently lose money. After 100 stores were divested, Bakers Oven blamed the rise of supermarket bread sales for its struggles.
The UK’s third largest bakery chain, Three Cooks, was also owned by a large British bread manufacturer, RHM (formerly Rank Hovis McDougall). The acquisition of Gladdings of Coventry took RHM to 300 outlets by the early 1990s.
Greggs differentiated from its two major rivals in being publicly listed from the 1980s onward, whilst maintaining a large family-owned stake.
A Bakers Oven Outlet in Willenhall in 1995
By 1993 Bakers Oven operated over 500 shops and employed over 5,000 people.
Greggs acquires Bakers Oven
In 1994 Greggs acquired Bakers Oven, with 424 stores and two main bakeries, for £18.5 million in cash. This took Greggs to a total of 929 outlets. Greggs was interested in expanding into the South East, where the majority of Bakers Oven outlets were based. Greggs was strongest in the North, particularly the North East, where it had a 40 percent market share in some areas. Greggs was also interested in learning about in-store baking and seated catering from the chain. As a combined group, Greggs was able to lower central buying costs and increase profitability. Greggs also announced plans to lower the pricing of Bakers Oven, which it regarded as excessive.
By 1995 Greggs had steered Bakers Oven into profitability by decreasing the focus on sliced white bread (in which they were undercut by supermarkets) and emphasising higher margin items such as sandwiches, savouries and pastries.
By 1996, 241 Bakers Oven outlets had been converted to the Greggs brand, mostly the units without in-store bakeries and seating and in less desirable locations. The Greggs model was to drive high volume value sales. However, new Bakers Oven outlets continued to be opened, and the chain was regarded as the company’s “premium brand”. In the late 1990s the chain was revamped, and items such as filter coffee and salad rolls were added to the menu.
By 2004 there were only 220 Bakers Oven outlets remaining. By 2006 the brand had been withdrawn from Scotland and the North of England, with all former outlets converted to Greggs. In December 2008 it was announced that the remaining 163 Bakers Oven outlets would be rebranded as Greggs.
Dowdy, tatty, dirty and unloved stores that increasingly resemble a jumble sale, unmotivated staff and not even good value for money. It sounds like the former Woolworths chain but I was actually describing W H Smith.
Commentators have increasingly singled it out as the next potential High Street victim for closure, as shoppers increasingly gravitate towards out of town sites and online. However, I think predictions of its imminent demise are overblown.
The travel concessions (airports and train stations) are really profitable for the chain. And why not? They’re useful for travellers and the lack of competition and impulse buy nature of the sites mean that they can command high prices with healthy margins.
The high street shops have several USPs:
1. Trashy, mass market books. Better coverage than Waterstones and the supermarkets. These impulse buys will not gravitate online.
2. Really comprehensive magazine stocking.
3. Stationery. Unless there is a Rymans nearby, there are few competitors. And people don’t buy stationery online.
4. Cards. Again, Smith’s may be more convenient if there isn’t a Clintons nearby.
5. Toys and games are always useful.
6. Impulse buys like drinks and snacks will always sell.
Burger King is the fourth largest restaurant chain in Britain.
Early expansion in the UK
Burger King was established in Florida in the United States in 1953. Burger King was the third-largest fast food chain in the world by the 1970s, behind only McDonald’s and Kentucky Fried Chicken.
McDonald’s had entered the British market in 1974 and Burger King soon followed, with its first outlet established on Coventry Street in central London in 1977. Its original range of products included the Whopper burger, as well as french fries, milkshakes and apple pies. Burger King planned to aim at a higher quality market than McDonald’s.
Early reviews published in the London Evening News were unflattering: for one customer, “The room was dirty and bare and the tables weren’t clean … not a very good hamburger”. Another patron lamented, “the burger was greasy, tasteless and overcooked”.
Burger King established its first restaurant outside London in Luton, in 1981, to take its total number of outlets to five. One of the earliest franchisees was Management Agency and Music, a record company co-owned by singers Tom Jones and Engelbert Humperdinck.
Burger King UK suffered from heavy losses in its early stages. The European operations headquarters were relocated from Zurich in Switzerland to London in 1983.
Expansion continued at a slow but steady rate: there were 14 outlets, including three drive-through locations, by 1987. Burger King acquired eight Quick hamburger sites from Whitbread for around £7 million in 1988.
Wimpy acquisition and further expansion
Like many of the American fast food chains, Burger King struggled to succeed in the UK until it found a partner with local knowledge. Burger King’s American parent company was acquired by the London-based hospitality company Grand Metropolitan in 1989.
Grand Metropolitan acquired the British-based Wimpy Hamburger business, and converted 150 counter-service Wimpy outlets to the Burger King fascia. With 180 outlets, Burger King now had scale in Britain, which offered significant economies for the business.
Burger King offered faster service, a wider product range, and better training for staff than Wimpy.
Burger King had 250 restaurants across Britain by 1994. New sites were developed at out of town locations.
Roadside services operator Granada introduced Burger King branches at its 24 sites in 1995. Granada discovered that converting a Little Chef into a Burger King had the potential to double sales.
Burger King had 465 outlets in the UK by 1997. The company held 15 percent of the British burger restaurant market by 1999. Following this period of expansion, the chain was to effectively stagnate for the next twenty years.
Burger King was implied in the horsemeat scandal of 2013, when its own investigation revealed that “trace amounts” of horse DNA were discovered in meat from its supplier in Ireland. The company immediately terminated its contract with the supplier.
Bridgepoint and Caspian Group acquired Burger King UK in 2017.
There are 530 Burger King outlets in the UK in 2021, with the vast majority operated by franchisees.
Burger King UK announced plans to list on the London Stock Exchange with a value of £600 million in 2021.
How did J&B Rare become the fifth highest-selling spirit in the world?
J&B Rare is introduced to the United States
Long-established London wine merchants Justerini & Brooks introduced J&B Rare, a blended Scotch whisky, from 1936.
J&B Rare was conceived of as an export brand. Its straw-gold body, and light, smooth, delicate character was designed to appeal to the American taste for rye whiskey. It is made with up to 50 percent single malt whisky, including Knockando, Auchroisk, Strathmill and Glen Spey.
Charles Guttman (1893 – 1969) of the Paddington Corporation was appointed as the United States distributor, and he initially established the brand in the New York City area.
Justerini & Brooks merged with Twiss, Brownings & Hallowes to form United Wine Traders in 1952.
Abe Rosenberg (1908 – 1985) became a partner in the Paddington Corporation from the mid-1950s. He began to expand J&B Rare distribution outside of its New York City heartland into the wider United States. 70,000 cases of J&B Rare were sold in 1954.
J&B Rare would compete fiercely with Cutty Sark, another Scotch whisky tailored for the American market which had been introduced by Berry Brothers, wine merchants of London, in 1923.
Justerini & Brooks refused to bolster sales by price-cutting, and J&B Rare was the most expensive non-aged Scotch whisky on the market.
Sales grew quickly as J&B Rare benefited from a shift in American tastes away from heavier Scotch whiskies such as Black & White and Ballantine’s, towards lighter blends. 700,000 cases of J&B Rare were sold in the United States in 1961, and it was the leading Scotch whisky in the New York City area.
International Vintners & Distillers
United Wine Traders merged with Gilbeys to become International Vintners & Distillers (IDV) from 1962. Gilbeys’ strong international distribution network helped to establish J&B Rare in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, South Africa and Ireland.
J&B Rare became the highest-selling Scotch whisky in the United States, with one million cases exported in 1962. The New York City area remained the heartland of the product. The brand remained virtually unknown in its native Britain.
Two million cases of J&B Rare were exported to America in 1967. J&B Rare was exported to 84 countries.
2.7 million cases of J&B Rare were sold in 1971, accounting for a substantial 55 percent of IDV profits.
Grand Metropolitan
IDV was acquired by Grand Metropolitan in 1972.
J&B Rare was the seventh highest-selling spirit in the United States by 1974, and the bestselling Scotch.
Rising sales of J&B Rare helped to render Grand Metropolitan the second largest distiller of branded Scotch whisky in the world by 1977. J&B Rare held ten percent of the global Scotch whisky market. Justerini & Brooks were awarded with a Queen’s Award for Export Achievement in 1978.
A push for sales outside the United States was a success, and J&B Rare was the second highest-selling Scotch whisky in the world by the mid-1980s.
J&B Rare was the fifth highest-selling spirit in the world by 1993.
J&B Rare was the tenth highest-selling Scotch whisky in the world in 2021. Its key markets are Southern Europe, South Africa and the United States.
Have you seen the new Jaguar ‘British Villains” ad? I first caught it on YouTube, then they showed it on Top Gear, and more recently I’ve seen it airing in UK cinemas.
I like the ad. It’s distinctive and has a lot of character, which I think has much to do with the actors hired by Jaguar: Ben Kingsley, Mark Strong and Tom Hiddleston. The three actors cover a lots of ground: Kingsley is an Academy Award-winning septuagenarian, Strong is a rising middle aged actor who is known for playing villains, and Hiddleston is a rising star, best known for playing Loki in the Thor superhero films. By covering three generations, Jaguar broadens its potential appeal. The inclusion of Hiddleston encourages individuals in their 20s and 30s to aspire to own a Jaguar, even if they can’t afford one yet.
The high calibre of acting talent associates the Jaguar brand with quality and refinement. It does this while avoiding the pitfall of seeming stuffy. This is because mainstream Hollywood actors give the ad accessibility and a contemporary feel. The ad also utilises humour, which is fairly unusual and thus distinctive for a sports car ad.
The actors and the London setting firmly establish Jaguar’s British provenance. The ad also attempts to associate itself with the kudos of the James Bond movies: a high speed chase involving sports cars, helicopters and planes, the tuxedos, the camp villains. This is Bond association on the sly, as not many viewers will realise that movie Bond has never driven a Jaguar.
The ad is of course very masculine, which makes sense, as most Jaguar drivers are probably men.
The tagline “It’s good to be bad” is fairly clever as well, as it acknowledges that a sport car is a kind of guilty pleasure, a frivolous, un-necessary purchase.
All in all, a decent ad from a brand that has suffered from a lack of a strong brand image.
Yorkshire Tea is the second highest-selling tea in Britain, with a 23 percent market share as of 2017.
Historically the leading tea brands in Britain have all been owned by large, wealthy corporations. It was argued that these companies had an advantage over small regional concerns due to marketing, distribution and technical expertise, as well as cost-scale efficiencies.
Many people would struggle to differentiate between Tetley, PG Tips and Typhoo in a blind taste testing. Twinings is different from the more mainstream three, as it is a more premium product.
Launched in 1977, Yorkshire Tea is a basic but strong black tea. It is a blend of Kenyan, Rwandan and Assam leaves. In taste and aroma it is of higher quality than Tetley, PG Tips and Typhoo, but inferior to Twinings. On price, it broadly matches PG Tips. So how did the family owned Yorkshire Tea brand rise to fourth place in a UK tea market dominated by large companies? Here are my ideas:
Value: the product offered quality at a moderate cost. Due to this, it rapidly established a cult following.
Technical innovation: the owner, Taylors of Harrogate, distributed slightly different blends in each UK region, in order to best suit the local water supply. (This ceased in 2000 when a Hard Water version was launched).
Branding: the packaging of the product evoked imagery of old rural Yorkshire. It tied in to a desire for provenance, and smaller-scale craft production. The slogan on the box, “Let’s have a proper brew” suggests authenticity due to the product’s local-ness and smaller scale production. It also indicates that its competitors do not offer this. Also the name, “Yorkshire Tea” is no-nonsense and straight forward.
Advertising: The brand was not advertised on television until 1997, when it sponsored Heartbeat. The association was canny: Heartbeat was a programme that was strongly associated with rural Yorkshire.
Marketing: The tea was offered for free to branches of the Women’s Institute until 2011. This gave women (who usually do the grocery shopping) a chance to taste the product.
The Grocer also suggest that Yorkshire Tea has a “stronger taste profile” than its competitors.
By 1994, five million cups of Yorkshire Tea were drunk each day. By 2001 this had grown to nine million cups. The brand had sales of £46.1 million in 2010. Value sales grew an impressive 66 percent between 2009 and 2014.
Dunkin’ Donuts has failed in the British market twice. Will it succeed on its third attempt?
1965 – 1968
Dunkin’ Donuts announced plans to establish a chain of 250 shops across Britain in 1965. The first outlet was opened at Ludgate Circus, London in October 1965. The venture was a “flop” according to The Economist, and the operation entered into liquidation in 1968.
1988 – 1999
The second attempt began in 1988. Somewhat frivolously, its British head office was at 48 Carnaby Street, London. Four outlets were opened in the Birmingham area, with a bakery at Leamington Spa. Six Dunkin’ Donuts (including a 24-hour branch in Glasgow) and a bakery in Livingston were established in Scotland. The plan was to open 100 outlets, with a focus on the London area. The outlets and bakeries were all closed down in 1999, after continuously losing money.
During its second attempt, Dunkin’ Donuts was actually owned by a British company, Allied Domecq, which has substantial knowledge of the local property and catering markets, as the owner of J Lyons (including the Wimpy burger chain) and 3,500 pubs.
2013 to present
Dunkin’ Donuts returned to Britain in 2013. Management may have been encouraged by the success of rival doughnut retailer Krispy Kreme. The chairman and chief executive of Dunkin’ Donuts in America is also a Brit. But Krispy Kreme clearly presents itself as a premium priced “treat”, whereas the Dunkin’ Donuts model is more of a value proposition akin to Greggs.
So Dunkin’ Donuts has entered the UK market, with two locations so far, and plans for expansion to 100 outlets in five years. The locations of the first two outlets, Harrow and Chelmsford (with plans for a third in Cambridge) make me feel confident about the chances for the chain’s future success in the UK. Not too flashy, with low rents. The mistake of many US food chains has been to occupy high profile central London outlets, with very high rents, and this rarely works out. This lack of arrogance on the part of DD may seem refreshing, but their humility stems from the fact that this is their third attempt to crack the UK market.
The first Dunkin’ Donuts site in the UK, in Harrow
Despite media claims about the “battle of the donuts”, Krispy Kreme will not be DD’s major rival in the UK. DD will compete primarily with Greggs, supermarkets, McDonald’s, and to a lesser extent the likes of Costa and Starbucks. Greggs is the company that has the most to fear from DD’s expansion, although Greggs is a wily competitor. Greggs did not emerge as the sole national bakery chain by falling asleep at the helm.
DD’s main customer base will be commuters, particularly during the lunchtime period. I haven’t been a DD either in the UK or elsewhere, so I can’t comment specifically on the food quality, but as it looks to be similar to McDonald’s and Greggs standard. If this is a case, it will be difficult for DD to succeed without matching their competitor’s prices. Due to its obvious initial cost disadvantage to its competitors due to its lack of scale, DD’s American parent company will have to be prepared to absorb sustained losses for at least a few years before the chain becomes profitable. The question is, how badly to DD want to gain a slice of the UK market?
Dunlop Rubber was one of the leading rubber manufacturers in the world. Its presence at Fort Dunlop in Birmingham ended after almost 100 years in 2014.
Establishment and growth of the business
John Boyd Dunlop (1840 – 1921) was a Scotsman who developed the pneumatic tyre. Harvey du Cros (1846 – 1918) established a company in Dublin to manufacture bicycle tyres based on Dunlop’s discovery in 1889. Dunlop himself was sceptical of the commercial potential of the product, and took a relatively modest 20 percent stake in the venture.
Dunlop’s first pneumatic bicycle tyre. Image from Wikimedia Commons.
The Dunlop tyre was tested by the greatest cyclist of the era, Willie Hume (1862 – 1941), who won seven races out of eight in a trial of the new product.
Manufacture was relocated from Dublin and Belfast to Coventry, the heart of the British cycle industry, from 1893. The business grew rapidly.
Dunlop becomes a public company
John Boyd Dunlop divested his shareholding in 1895, and the company was sold to the financier Ernest Terah Hooley (1859 – 1947) for £3 million in 1896. Within a matter of months, by bringing on aristocratic directors and garnering press attention, Hooley was able to publicly float the company for £5 million.
Additional factories were established in the United States, France and Japan.
Dunlop produced its first tyre for a motor car in 1906. The first rubber estates in Malaysia were acquired, in order to ensure a supply of raw material, in 1910.
Dunlop employed 30,000 people by 1916. That year construction began on the 400-acre Fort Dunlop headquarters and production site at Birmingham.
Dunlop was the fourteenth-largest manufacturing company in Britain by 1918, and its only large-scale tyre manufacturer. It had a market value of £8.9 million in 1919.
Dunlop began to diversify from tyres from 1924. It entered the sports market in earnest when it acquired the tennis racket manufacturer F A Davis. Charles Macintosh, the raincoat manufacturer, was acquired in 1926.
The Malaysian estates were expanded over time, and Dunlop was the largest single landowner in the British Empire by 1926.
Dunlop remained the largest tyre manufacturer in the world. Dunlop was the eighth-largest public company in Britain by 1930, with a market value of £28.2 million.
All of the 61 official world records for car speed had used Dunlop tyres by 1933.
Dunlop was a major industrial supplier for Britain during the Second World War, producing the bulk of rubber tyres and boots for the war effort.
Dunlop had 70,000 employees, and sales outlets in nearly every country in the world by 1946. Dunlop was the tenth-largest British company by 1948, with a market value of £55.9 million.
The fortunes of Dunlop were closely interlinked with the British car industry. Britain was the second-largest car manufacturer in 1950, and the largest exporter of cars in the world. Many of these cars were fitted with Dunlop tyres. Dunlop accounted for almost half of all tyre sales by value in Britain in 1950.
Dunlop employed 100,000 people by 1955, and was the second-largest private employer in Britain after ICI. Dunlop was the twelfth-largest company in the world outside the United States in 1959.
Slazenger, the sporting goods business, was acquired in 1959.
Dunlop enters into decline
Dunlop was slow to adapt to the new market for steel-belted radial tyres, and had begun to decline by the early 1960s. Performance was also undermined by the decline of the British car industry.
A lengthy strike at Fort Dunlop resulted in a loss of £3 million at the group’s British operations in 1970: the first in its history. As a result, the largest British car manufacturer, British Leyland, which had previously acquired all of its tyres from Dunlop, adopted a policy of dual-sourcing in order to ensure supply.
Dunlop was the 35th-largest company outside of the United States in the late 1960s. Dunlop was the eleventh-largest British industrial company in 1973, with a turnover of £495 million and capital of £290 million.
Merger with Pirelli and break-up of the business
Dunlop merged with Pirelli of Italy to form the third-largest tyre manufacturer in the world, after Goodyear and Firestone, in 1971. The combined group had a turnover of almost £900 million.
The merger was to prove a disaster: the Pirelli branch lost money every year until 1980. The merger was undone in 1981, but it was too late: Dunlop had amassed massive debts and was almost bankrupt. Dunlop reduced its workforce by over 19,000 between 1978 and 1982.
Dunlop’s tyre manufacturing operations ran at an increasing loss by 1978. Of eight European sites, only the Washington plant near Newcastle upon Tyne remained profitable by the late 1970s. The tyre operations lost £22 million in 1980.
Dunlop sold its 51 percent stake in its Malaysian rubber estates to Multi-Purpose Holdings, a Chinese-Malaysian group, for £60 million in 1981. The Dunlop estates represented the sixth-largest plantation group in Malaysia, covering over 55,000 acres.
Dunlop’s loss-making European tyre business was sold to Sumitomo, its former Japanese subsidiary, for £82 million in 1983.
The Dunlop workforce was reduced by half between 1970 and 1983, from 107,000 to 53,000 people.
The remnant of Dunlop was acquired by BTR, an industrial conglomerate, for £101 million in 1985.
BTR sold the United States tyre business to its management for £142 million.
Dunlop was the fourth-largest tyre brand in 1988, with sales of $3.45 billion.
BTR sold the remaining Dunlop businesses to various interests around the world in 1996. The sporting arm, Dunlop Slazenger, was sold to Cinven, a private equity firm, for £372 million. Dunlop Standard, the aerospace group, was sold to private equity firm Doughty Hanson for £510 million.
The bulk of Sumitomo’s sales came from the Dunlop brand in 1999. Dunlop was the largest tyre supplier to Toyota and Mercedes-Benz, and one of the principal suppliers to Honda and Nissan.
