Named after its home hamlet in the west of England, Penrhos Spirits is very much a family affair. The company’s namesake gin brand first appeared eight years ago – just as the gin category hit its most recent peak. Then, in 2023, everything changed for Penrhos Gin. Co-founder Harriet Evans talks Global Drinks Intel editor Olly Wehring through the company and its brand’s colourful history.
What’s the history of Penrhos Spirits?
We started in 2017. My dad, Richard, and brother Charlie were fruit farmers here in Herefordshire. They teamed up and started Penrhos Fruit. They started noticing that a lot of the fruit wasn’t really good enough for shop shelves, so they were looking to do something with this wonky fruit – This was before the term ‘wonky’ was as widely used as it is today. They discussed with my mum, Sally, and Charlie’s wife, Kate – along with 20-year-old me in the background – how to use this fruit.
We looked at cider, but Herefordshire was saturated with cider. Instead, we settled on gin. At the beginning of 2019, we launched Penrhos Gin in glass bottles. Our ‘thing’ was around the wonky blueberry, which is still our logo today. Our Dry gin contains wonky blueberries from the farm. That’s how we started.
Where did you learn how to produce gin?
Being farmers, both dad and Charlie are very practical. They went on a course together, which I know mum enjoyed very much. and just learnt quite quickly. I’m biased, I know, but our dry gin is so smooth and it’s just very drinkable. They seem to have quite a knack for making good gin.
Charlie describes it as like making a cake and you keep the ingredients the same!
What’s the ownership structure of the company?
It’s still owned by the family (below). My dad realised that maybe he’s not made for the spirits world and is actually a much better farmer. He’s more in the background, whereas I’ve stepped up and taken more of a role.
What size has the company and the brand grown to today?
We’ve got a national listing with (UK multiple retailer) Sainsbury’s, which has massively helped to grow the brand. Their first order, in September 2023, was for 15,000 bottles, which took us three weeks to get together.
The change from the original glass bottle to recycled aluminium in early 2023 changed everything for us. It made us not only a gin brand, but a brand that was actually challenging the norm.
To give you a sense of volumes, we took delivery of 50,000 recycled aluminium bottles at the beginning of this year. Today, we’ve got 14,000 left.
Did you worry about bringing another USP into play for the brand?
When, we started looking to order more bottles, they were going to take about a year to arrive. Charlie’s quite innovative and likes to look at what’s out there. He explored the Frugalpac (paperboard-based) bottle but we decided it wasn’t for us. Then, at a local cricket match, Charlie saw a woman with a recycled aluminium water bottle. After a lot of research, he managed to find a 70cl version.
It wasn’t an easy decision. Actually, it was terrifying because no one had done it. Before, we were very stuck with what we had, because we had a blue bottle for the London dry, a red bottle for the rhubarb, a green for the apple & elderflower. Alongside all of its ecological credentials, we can now just change the label.
As we started to learn more about recycled aluminium, it definitely felt like the right way for us to go. The bottle is lighter when it’s full than the glass bottle is when it’s empty!
How did you secure the Sainsbury’s listing?
Both Charlie and I are quite vocal on LinkedIn – we’re also quite persistent! He was messaging their buyer at the time, and they instantly loved it. We kind of went at it in a back-to-front way, because we were then asked to pitch to their ‘Future Brands’ team. Normally, this team finds you and then puts you in front of the buyer.
At this point, we didn’t even have bottles; we just had a sample one. They loved that we were a farming family trying to do something a little bit different and a little bit better. They also loved that they’d be able to launch the first recycled aluminium bottle on their shelves.
I was so thankful for the Future Brands team because I’d never dealt with a grocery listing before: Their terminology is a different language in itself. We got so much support – For the first 12 weeks that we were in store, we had a free aisle fin that we could put information on to help us stand out and had some in-store sampling. We were also featured in the Sainsbury’s magazine and fronted some of their social media content. These are all things that would have cost a small, growing brand like ours a lot of money.
Who do you consider to be your competition?
We always tend to sit next to Chase Spirits’ namesake gin brand, because we’re both from Herefordshire. We also have a very similar story to the likes of (English gin brand) Warner’s, both coming from farming backgrounds and both caring for the environment.
What has your funding journey been?
We’re lucky that we’re based on our farm. The distillery is in our old calving shed, which is right in the middle of the farmyard. I love that we’re now making gin in there. As the brand’s grown, we’ve taken over more of the farm’s existing buildings.
We have raised some investment, to the tune of around GBP100,000 (US$131,290) from two investors – one’s a friend of the family, the other we found through an agency. The thing is, though, when you’re growing a brand, you’re constantly wanting more money to do more marketing and get your name out there.
Do you have an exit strategy?
I don’t really know how to answer that. Penrhos is the name of my family’s farm, where I’ve grown up. I just want to keep growing the brand.
When friends send me photos of our gin in Luton Airport, for example, that’s just crazy to me. At the moment, we want to keep growing it and getting recycled aluminium bottles on every shelf that we can.
But Chase Spirits was acquired by Diageo back in 2020. Doesn’t that sort of transaction appeal to you?
That was a huge thing for Herefordshire. But who knows what the future holds? I’m still young, so I’ve got plenty of go just to keep selling gin.
What’s been the lowest point of the journey for you so far?
Every day’s like a rollercoaster, really, with ups and downs. Without wanting to sound like a broken record, Covid was obviously really hard. Like most people, we pivoted to making hand sanitiser.
Waiting to hear whether we’d got the Sainsbury’s listing was also incredibly tough. You don’t actually hear from them for a very long time, so you don’t really know if you’ve got a listing or not. That was quite terrifying.
Everything seems to take so long. Working in a farming environment, we’re used to things being fast-paced. If something breaks and you can’t irrigate your cherries, for example, you’re going to fix it. With Penrhos gin, we might speak to a buyer and they’ll say: ‘Let’s catch up in a year’. And I’m thinking, in a year?!
I think we’ve been quite lucky, though, in that there’s nothing that really stands out to me. Anyone will say that growing their own brand is really hard, and it is. Obviously, you think your brand’s amazing, so why wouldn’t everyone want to buy it?
What advice would you give to someone who’s just starting out?
Your brand needs to have a point of difference. I don’t think you can just bring out a gin now in a bottle with a label and hope you’re going to make a success of it. Also, look at your competitors and identify what’s gone well for them and what hasn’t worked.
I genuinely believe our bottle has really put us in a strong position. I mean, global travel retail hadn’t entered our minds as an opportunity until we realised how perfect this bottle is for travel. So, definitely make your brand as unique as you can.
Where do you see Penrhos 12 months from now?
I certainly hope to see us continue to grow in travel retail. We’ve just got listed in Dubai, which is huge for us. We’ve also just launched our first recycled aluminium bottle in one litre. Then there’s the 5cl packs, which are perfect for aeroplanes. So, yes, definitely high hopes for travel retail.
I’d also love to add a few more retailers to the list of places where you can buy our gin. I’d like to see us keep growing and keep making delicious gin and saving more wonky fruit.
Ultimately, that’s why we started doing this.
