Warwickshire brewer Purity sees sales rise 83 per cent
Sep 23 2009 by Tom Scotney, Birmingham Post
Warwickshire brewery Purity is looking to cement its growing position as one of the premium beer-makers in the region after its turnover more than doubled inside a year.
The brewer’s end-of-year financial results for 2008-09 showed sales had gone up by 83 per cent compared to the previous year, rising to £1.37 million.
This was significantly higher than the company’s target for the year of £1.1 million and came after 12 months during which the company massively increased its distribution network.
More than 1.4 million pints of Purity beer – including award-winners Mad Goose, Pure UBU and Pure Gold – were pulled at 400 pubs, compared to about 200 outlets the year before.
The firm signed a deal with Mitchells & Butlers to supply Pure UBU to around 50 of its pubs in the Midlands region and most significantly, it made an arrangement with Suffolk brewer Adnams to sell Purity in its network of pubs in the South East and London and on the east coast. This was the first move by Purity out of its Midlands heartland.
Purity managing director Paul Halsey described the results as ‘phenomenal’, and said the next step would be to try to cement Purity’s place in its home market of the Midlands by signing deals with local pub companies Punch Taverns and Enterprise Inns, who both control vast swathes of the pub market through their portfolios of licensed and managed pubs.
“In the current economic climate, it’s a great performance both for us as brewers and as a company,” he said.
“But we are not going to change our brand value. There are lots of people out there who don’t know us.
