How did Irn-Bru become the fourth highest-selling soft drink in Britain?
Robert Barr establishes the business
Robert Barr (1834 -1904) was born in Falkirk, Scotland, a town located between Glasgow and Edinburgh. He followed his father into the cork-cutting trade, largely supplying the drinks industry.
The cork-cutting trade came under threat from the rise of the screw-stopper, which led Robert Barr to established a soft drinks business in 1873. The enterprise employed five men, three girls and two boys in 1881.
Growth of the business
Andrew Greig Barr (1872 – 1903), the son of Robert Barr, trained as a banker, but returned to the family business in 1890. He was appointed manager of a new factory in Glasgow in 1892. He would develop the Glasgow site into the largest carbonated soft drinks factory in Scotland. A G Barr had assumed full control of the business by the end of the nineteenth century.
Iron Brew was introduced in 1901. The drink had originated in the United States in the late nineteenth century, and used a base of bitter orange. The Barr recipe contains 32 flavouring ingredients, including citrus fruit, quinine and curry powder.
Andrew Greig Barr died in 1903, by which time the business employed 500 people. He was succeeded as managing director of A G Barr & Co by his two brothers, Robert Fulton Barr (1868 – 1918) and William Snodgrass Barr (1881 – 1952).
The Glasgow site was significantly expanded in 1914, to create one of the largest soft drinks factories in Britain. A G Barr & Co was the largest soft drinks manufacturer in Scotland by 1918.
William Snodgrass Barr passed the chairmanship of the company to his nephew, Colonel Robert Barr (1896 – 1949), in 1931.
A small amount of iron was present in Iron Brew from 1937 onwards.
Government rationing regulations saw Iron Brew withdrawn from sale between 1942 and 1948. A G Barr continued to advertise Iron Brew during this period. When Iron Brew was reintroduced to the British market it was renamed Irn-Bru in order to differentiate the drink from competing products and to avoid falling foul of a mooted government Food Labelling Act.
A G Barr becomes a public company
Robert Barr (1907 – 1993) was appointed chairman in 1947. A G Barr & Co was registered as a public company in 1965.
A G Barr overtook Tizer of Manchester to become the fourth largest soft drink manufacturer in Britain in the late 1960s. Irn-Bru dominated the Scottish soft drink market, and was introduced to England from 1970.
Tizer was acquired for £2.5 million in 1972. A G Barr wanted access to the company’s distribution network in England to promote sales of Irn-Bru. Tizer had been struggling with falling sales for a number of reasons: drinks were not sold in cans, there was no advertising budget, there were no sales to the supermarkets and the flavour essences used had been subjected to cost-cutting.
The Tizer purchase transformed A G Barr into the largest specialist soft drinks manufacturer in Britain. A G Barr reformulated Tizer to recapture how it tasted the 1930s.
Robin Barr (born 1938) succeeded his father as chairman in 1978. He developed sales of Irn-Bru in the English market. He retired in 2023.
What is the flavour? For Robin Barr, “some might say it tastes of bubblegum. Others might say it tastes of citrus fruits, still others might say it has a peppery taste”.