Origins The business was formed in 1742 when
Samuel Whitbread formed a partnership with Godfrey and Thomas Shewell. They acquired a small brewery at the junction of
Old Street and Upper
Whitecross Street, along with a brewery in
Brick Lane,
Spitalfields, which was used for brewing pale and amber beers. 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 brew porter, Whitbread was the first to exploit it commercially on a large scale. In 1796 the company produced 202,000 barrels of porter.
Expansion and social welfare By the 1810s, Samuel Whitbread Jnr (1764–1815) had brought in several new investment partners including his cousin Jacob Whitbread and the Master Brewer
John Martineau I (1758-1834). Four generations of Martineau's descendants, father-to-son, would later sit on the board of Whitbread, including John Martineau I's great great grandson,
John Edmund Martineau. In her published 1877 autobiography, John Martineau I's niece, author
Harriet Martineau, wrote that she had been a guest at "the great Brewery" in December 1831 where she had presented herself "without notice" to her "kind cousin [John's son, Richard Martineau (1804 - 1865)] and his family" at the "great Brewery [where] night after night, the brewery clock struck twelve, while the pen was still pushing on in my trembling hand". She continued: "I was really glad to be alone during those three eventful weeks, - feeling myself no intruder and being under the care of attentive servants". By 1870, Whitbread had begun producing bottled beers for sale and continued to expand production. On 24 July 1889, the company became a registered limited liability company. In 1914, the firm claimed it was "the largest beer bottler in the world." By the 1870s, John Martineau II had bought land in
Eversley where he had boarded with his tutor
Charles Kingsley. This was, as reported by the
Bury Free Press in 1902, 'to rebuild cottages and to build fresh ones realising, long before it became the popular cry, that the fundamental basis for improving the health, happiness and morals of England was decent and healthy housing.’
Guinness Brewery From 1904, Whitbread was bottling
Guinness stout. This cooperation, and rivalry, between the two breweries continued into the 20th century with both firms boasting a
Master of the Worshipful Company of Brewers;
John Edmund Martineau, the great great grandson of
John Martineau in 1955 and
Cecil Edward Guinness, the great great great great nephew of
Arthur Guinness in 1977. In the 1920s Whitbread introduced the Double Brown which was designed to rival Guinness and was almost a recreation of Whitbread's original
porter. In 2000,
The Guardian reported that Whitbread was the country's third largest brewer and that Guinness was the largest.
20th century 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. 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. 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
Supply of Beer (Tied Estate) Order 1989 (
SI 1989/2390). 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.
21st century In 2001, Whitbread decided to sell all its breweries and brewing interests (Whitbread Beer Company) to Interbrew, now known as
InBev. 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 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 2013, as part of the
2013 horse meat scandal, DNA tests ordered by Whitbread revealed that horsemeat was present in some meat products sold in outlets owned by the company, at the time Britain's biggest hotel group. On 26 February 2013 Whitbread vowed to remedy the unacceptable situation. 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.
Sir Samuel Whitbread died in January 2023 and was the last family chairman of the brewery, who hastened the company’s move from beer to leisure. ==Current operations==