INSIDE HQ

business of around 1,300 people that we sold. We simplified the business to focus on our brands and consumers, because that’s what we’re about.”

off-trade (the rest) market through its own sales force. Then came the S&N deal and shortly after what has been a challenging time for the industry. “It’s fair to say certainly in the UK and around the world we’ve experienced some of the most difficult economic times our generation has ever experienced, layer after layer, including the smoking ban,” says Orlowski. “The beer market, the on-trade in particular in the UK, has not been a thriving place to be in.” Nevertheless, Heineken has stuck to its strategy of innovation in the world’s eighth-biggest beer market, brewing beer in two large breweries in Manchester and Tadcaster, Yorkshire, a small specialist brewery in Edinburgh and two cider- making sites in Herefordshire. “There’s a whole rural infrastructure that’s built around cider; we have 25-30- year contracts with farmers in the West Country,” says Orlowski. Additionally there is a telephone sales operation in Livingston, Scotland and UK headquarters in Edinburgh, and a southern office in London. Altogether, Heineken employs 2,500 people directly at the sites, while another 2,000 are employed supporting the Heineken businesses in the UK. The current operation has a smaller imprint than when S&N was acquired,

Altogether, Heineken employs 2,500 directly at the sites

Along the way, a large pub estate, under complex ownership due to a myriad of contracts, was bought out. The result is a portfolio of 1,340 Heineken-owned pubs all across the UK, operating on a leased and tenanted model. “We now own the pubs, we have people in those pubs who are our tenants, and we try to help them be as successful as possible,” says Orlowski.

KEY VALUES while another

2,000 are employed supporting the businesses in the UK

following closures of breweries in Reading and Dunston, Gateshead. This reduction in sites reflects the changed economic environment and its effect on consumption. “Something like 25 per cent of the on-trade has disappeared in the last four to five years. That’s a big number, principally around the closure of wet-led pubs,” says Orlowski. “We have had to adjust our cost base and our infrastructure to what is a smaller market. We also had a very large wholesale

What Heineken has sought to install across the UK operation is a set of three values that are considered key to prosperity – a passion for quality, respect and enjoyment. “Quality is key,” says Orlowski. “Let’s remember, for example, that 3m pints of Foster’s are drunk every day, that’s a massive number – you think how many consumers we touch, we’re bigger than Coca-Cola, bigger than Pepsi. “At the end of the day, a guy pops into a pub at 7pm and orders a pint of Foster’s, it might be the best moment of his day, so it had better be good then, not only from a product perspective, but also from an experience perspective. Everything we do ends with that moment of truth.

“Respect has a lot of dimensions,” he continues. “It is respect for people, both internally and externally, and the communities and the wider environment. When we closed the Reading brewery, 600 people left the business, but they were

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