15 Facts About Whitbread

Whitbread plc is a multinational British hotel and restaurant company headquartered in Houghton Regis, England.

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.

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.

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Whitbread was 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.

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.

In 1984, Samuel Charles Whitbread became chairman and a reorganisation of the company took place into separate divisions; the spirits arm, including Laphroaig was sold to Allied Distillers in 1989.

In July 1996, Whitbread purchased the Pelican Group for £133m, and in November 1996, Whitbread acquired the restaurant group BrightReasons for £46m.

In 2001, Whitbread decided to sell all its breweries and brewing interests to Interbrew, now known as InBev.

Whitbread-branded alcoholic beverages are still available in the UK, such as canned Whitbread bitter, but these are not produced by InBev, but rather under licence by other producers.

In 2002 Whitbread sold its pub estate, known as the Laurel Pub Company, to Enterprise Inns, and sold its Pelican and BrightReasons restaurant groups for £25m to Tragus Holdings.

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.

Whitbread 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.