This interview is with Richard Simm, Managing Director, Fonthill Brewing Co..
To start, could you introduce yourself and share what you oversee as Managing Director in the craft beer space?
I’m Rich, and I’m the Managing Director of Fonthill Ltd. We operate four venues in Kent, located in the South East of England, as well as a microbrewery that supplies our sites.
Looking back, what were the pivotal experiences that led you to a Managing Director role in food & beverage and craft beer?
Like a lot of people, I fell into my job by accident. Although I had always liked the idea of creating third spaces where people could come together, my ambition was to be a journalist. I initially took a small share in a pub some friends were opening, more as a hobby. I juggled the two for a short time before it became fairly obvious to me that I wasn’t very good at my day job, while the pub was starting to do really well.
So, I put my career on hold for a few months while I got the pub sorted. Twenty years later, I have yet to go back.
Building on that foundation, how do you balance creative brewing ambitions with P&L realities when you set portfolio and brand strategy?
Brewing is something we are quite new to. We concentrated on building the venues first; two pubs, a music venue, and a cafe took all our time, and we are still getting to grips with the realities of brewing. That said, we predominantly supply our venues and brew at one of them, so we have the freedom to be creative when it comes to running the brewery. We don’t look at it in terms of pure profit and loss, but as the thing that makes our venues special.
Translating strategy into the glass, which operational processes have proven most critical for ensuring quality and freshness from brewhouse to tap?
We’re very lucky to have a head brewer, Paul, whose background is in cheffing. There are a lot of transferable skills between the two, but paramount is the need for being process-driven. To give a really boring—but honest—answer, it’s largely about being very, very clean.
Alongside craft kegged beer, we brew real ale in a cask. That’s a live, unpasteurized product very specific to the UK. The smallest contamination can ruin a batch—or worse, make it spoil while it’s being served. Of course, with our brewery on our premises, quality control is easier. But it would be all the more embarrassing for this to happen. So we have both the means and the motive to get it right.
Staying on execution, how do you approach ingredient and packaging procurement to protect margins while preserving the flavor profile your brand is known for?
We’ve found that local sourcing counts for a lot. We’re lucky to be in Kent, which is traditional hop-growing country. We know from the kitchens we run that relationships with small, local producers and suppliers matter significantly. That gets you fresh ingredients at the best value possible.
On the go-to-market front, what has worked best for integrating your craft beer program with the broader food & beverage experience to drive sustainable growth?
Sustainability was part of the motive for starting our brewery. All our sites are within a mile of each other, and we’ve created a closed loop that has cut the food miles by over 95% if people choose our beer over better-known brands. A lot of customers love that, so we’re seeing our share of our own sales grow steadily.
From a leadership angle, how do you build cross-functional alignment and develop talent across brewing, hospitality, and sales teams?
Our business is built on friendly customer service—whether it is people brewing beer, organizing events, or simply serving drinks.
That’s easier said than done. You cannot teach charm; you have to find it and nurture it by building something that all employees can be proud of. The hope is that you can create a virtuous circle where people want to be part of something, be they workers or visitors.
Turning to innovation, how do you decide which consumer trends—such as low/no-alcohol, lagers, or beyond-beer—to pursue and which to pass on?
A fad is quite easy to spot. Twenty years in the pub game, and longer as a pub regular, allows you to see trends come and go. What’s being promoted by the multinationals isn’t as sure a bet as it might seem.
That said, some trends, like non-alcoholic drinks, are undeniable and stem from factors larger than marketing.
Finally, when measuring progress, which metrics or dashboards most reliably guide your production, inventory, and channel decisions?
I do like diving into figures and measuring KPIs. I can get a bit forensic. However, it’s easy to get lost in the numbers and rely on them too much. Nothing beats actually spending time on the shop floor and trusting your gut. A hypothesis can be proven through real experiences.
Ultimately, as a small business, we can afford to trial things with minimized risk. In fact, if I’ve learned anything, it’s that being shy and not experimenting is the biggest risk. Small businesses can become small-minded over the course of decades. I need to keep reminding myself that we’re the same people who, in our twenties, decided to open a pub together with very little hope of anything but just having some fun.