When did you join the company?
James Staughton: It was January 1980. I was a 21-year-old lad who didn’t know what he wanted to do. I didn’t want to be a solicitor like my dad or join the Army as it seemed the fashionable thing to do back then. I was brought up in London and I remember my teacher at the time saying ‘where the hell is Cornwall?’ I thought joining the family brewery was a cool thing to do so I packed everything I had in my Ford Fiesta and drove down to Cornwall. I promised my mum that I would teach myself to cook but I don’t think I read past the first page on the cookery book she gave me. The Chinese restaurant in St Blazey did such a good trade out of me they must have retired on it.
I joined the company as an apprentice. I was not brought in to do any specific role. I was going to work on all aspects of the business so for two years I moved around the company doing as many jobs as possible including brewing at 5am. My first job was to run our office licences. We used to have five or six. Some of them were part of our pubs, others were direct shops like the one we had in River Street in Truro. I remember the amount of scrumpy we used to sell to tourists out of the Newquay off licence. It was extraordinary.
Sadly my first job was to close them down. At the time the supermarkets had not really cottoned on to selling alcohol but by the late Eighties there was this growing interest in wine and suddenly they decided to get a piece of the action. That was that for our off licences. They were always an add-on to our business so as the managers retired we closed the shops.
How was the company at the time you joined?
Our pubs were doing OK but our beer had a really poor reputation for being inconsistent. Customer choice was pretty limited at the time but I knew it was bad when our own brewers would order ‘bitter tops’ in the pubs to mask the taste of our own beer with lemonade. We were known as ‘St Awful Ale from St Awful’ which was not a great place to be in. We even thought about changing our name back to its original Walter Hicks brewery name. All the breweries are named after their founder not their location. When the first talks about Eden project started I knew then that if they got permission to build this amazing thing would suddenly put St Austell and Cornwall on the map. I’m glad we didn’t change our name.
When did you take over the reins of St Austell Brewery?
I became one of the directors in 1988 and CEO in 2000. I tell people I have had the two best jobs in the company: working on wine sales as I got to go abroad to nice wine producing countries and boss.
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Why did wine suddenly take off in the Eighties?
Wine was not really talked about. At the time German wine like Blue Nun or Black Tower was all there was available. They only make the stuff to export it to Britain. They don’t drink it. Taste in wine was not as sophisticated. But people started to move onto dry white. It was all very French back then now of course people buy wine from all over the world. Then they moved onto red and started to explore new flavours and tastes and marrying their wine up with food. Suddenly we were putting wine in our pubs. It was popular with women in particular and was more appealing with food. Food was what changed everything.
What were the first decisions you took as the CEO?
At the time there were lot of family brewers who were throwing in the towel or concentrating on becoming pub companies. It was a strategic decision from us to continue to brew and be pub landlords. We needed to grow and change but our challenge at the time was that as we were just below the threshold for tax duty, if we increased production we would have to sell a lot more beer in a fragile market and rebuild our reputation to make some profits. For a few years there was no increase in profits.
Is that when you recruited Roger Ryman as new head brewer?
We needed a new head brewer. That was my number one priority. At the time the board said as it was my idea I should get on with it. Roger was in Scotland at the time and didn’t really have any intention to move. We had no marketing or HR department so I went about putting a big advert in the Brewers’ Guardian. I remember plagiarising many adverts to come up with some wording that would be the most tempting for a head brewer. We cobbled this advert together. In those days it cost £500 for a half page colour ad which was a lot. I guess Roger was flicking through the paper and saw our ad. He joined us and blew us away from day one. We had to lie about his age because in those days there would have been grumbles if you weren’t 50 or over. It was unthinkable that you could be good enough to be head brewer if you were in your 20s or 30s. Roger was 31 but we told the team he was 40.
Getting Roger was a big roll of the dice. Here was some 30-year-old guy from Scotland coming down to what was still quite a backwater part of the 海角视频. It was only Rick Stein and Eden putting Cornwall on the map. Compare that to Brand Cornwall today and how strong it is.
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Looking back, what would you say your legacy is?
We have continued to build our pub portfolio into something that’s quite special. Our brewing turn around has been phenomenal. It has to be the thing that gives me the greatest satisfaction against a declining market. Where they are shutting big breweries down around the country we’ve bucked the trend and have out performed the market every year. What a remarkable story for St Austell Brewery. We have had a new head brewer and have followed through from grain to glass at every step of the way to ensure that our beer is consistently good every time and is the best possible product for our pubs to sell that’s why we signed up to Cask Mark. Over the years we have rebranded and looked at every aspect of the business to see where we could improve. For a long time real ale had a bad name. It was inconsistent. Our mantra over the years has been to focus on consistency and quality. We refreshed our range. We have so many more staff now. People started to recognise that our beer was enjoyable. It has led to increased confidence from consumers. Long gone are the days when our beer Tinners was known as ‘thinners from St Awful’.
What sort of growth has the company enjoyed under your tenure?
We have grown the number of pub from 144 in 1980 to 177 this year. We used to produce 15,000 brewers’ barrels of beer when I became the boss 20 years ago and now we do 157,000. Our staff has also increased from 450 people back then to 900 in 2000 and now 1,500. Our turnover has gone from £10m in 1980, to £47m in 2000 to about £190m tin the last financial year. We won 290 awards in that time, that’s almost one a month. I never thought we would end up selling nationally and internationally let alone acquire Bath Ales. I am so proud of what our brewing team and the rest of the estate have achieved. If Walter Hicks were still around today I think he would be proud too.
How do you feel handing over the reins to a non-family member?
In a way I’m relieved that the next St Austell Brewery boss won’t be a member of the family because it means that the responsibility of taking it on will not rest on their shoulders. Because I have grown up with the business it’s all I have ever known. I haven’t got any real sense of the journey that we have been on because I’ve been in it day-in day-out. Unless you have tonnes of business experience and cut your teeth into another business or created your own, it could be too much for anyone to take on. That’s why we think Kevin Georgel is perfect for the job. He’s the CEO of pub group Admiral Taverns. He’s worked for Punch Taverns and has been on the board here for many years. We always wanted him and now it’s falling into place.
I don’t exclude that the CEO after him will be from the family again. There is enough potential in the next generation for that to happen. We have a family council to encourage the next generation to come down here for two weeks to get a taster of the business. I know it gives them pride to know how well we’re doing and that our beer is on BA flights and sold internationally.
When we won the contract for tribute to be on long haul BA flights, I truly thought, wow this is one hell of an endorsement. Look at Proper Job not only do we sell truck loads of the stuff in France but it’s now outselling Young’s Pubs’ own beer in their pubs.
What about your retirement?
I’m apprehensive about it but I won’t miss the emails. I will miss the people because at the end of the day this is a people’s business. I won’t be on the board. I won’t be interfering. I’ll get on with improving my golf and do more sailing.
I remain the chairman of the St Austell Bay Economic Forum and 2020 looks like it will be a delivery year for many of our projects. I’m a member of the Worshipful Company of Brewers which is the guild of brewers and in four years I will be the Grand Master which means Cornwall will take over London for a year. I will continue as deputy Lord Lieutenant for Cornwall and I hope to take a more active role. First of all though, I will have a pause to give me time to take stock. One thing for sure, I want to give something back to society so I will work with local charities. I want to promote how wonderful an industry the hospitality and brewing sector is with young people.