Whitbread plc is a British multinational hotel and restaurant company headquartered in Houghton Regis, England.
The business was founded as a brewery in 1742, and had become the largest brewery in the world by the 1780s.
Its largest division is currently Premier Inn, which is the largest hotel brand in the UK with over 785 hotels and 72,000 rooms. Until January 2019 it owned Costa Coffee but sold it to The Coca-Cola Company. Whitbread's brands include the restaurant chains Beefeater, Brewers Fayre and Table Table.
Whitbread is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index.
History
Origins
The business was formed in 1742 when Samuel Whitbread formed a partnership with Godfrey and Thomas Shewell and acquired a small brewery at the junction of Old Street and Upper Whitecross Street and another brewhouse for pale and amber beers in Brick Lane, Spitalfields. 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 discover Porter production, Whitbread was the first to exploit it commercially on a large scale. This coincided with an increase in beer consumption in the UK, following regulations to limit the sale of gin owing to the excesses of the Gin Craze. By 1758 production at Chiswell street was 65,000 barrels and the firm had become the largest firm of Porter brewers in the UK. From the outset, Whitbread was the leading financial partner, and solely responsible for management, and in 1761, Whitbread acquired Shewell's share of the business for £30,000.
By the 1780s Whitbread had become the largest brewery in the world. In 1796 the company produced 202,000 barrels of porter. The firm struggled after the death of Samuel Whitbread Sr, and saw ownership transfer to his son, also called Samuel Whitbread. The company adopted the name Whitbread & Co Ltd in 1799.
By the 1810s, Samuel Whitbread Jnr had brought in several new investment partners including his cousin Jacob Whitbread and the Master Brewer John Martineau (four of his descendants would later sit on the board of Whitbread, including John Edmund Martineau). In 1812, the company merged with the Martineau Brewery holdings and by 1816, leadership was shared between William Henry Whitbread (Samuel Whitbread Jnrs son) and John Martineau, who died in an industrial accident in a yeast vat in the brewery in 1834. By 1870, the company had begun producing bottled beers for sale and continued to expand production. On 24th July 1889, the company become a registered limited liability company.
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. The company was also reorganised under the leadership of Sir Sydney Neville and introduced new ales, including Double Brown ale. 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.