James Staughton: green and pleasant land

St Austell Brewery's managing director James Staughton believes an environmental focus is vital for running a successful pub business in Cornwall. Phil Mellows reports

There is a moment when you don't think he's going to fit, but, with a barely audible grunt, James Staughton succeeds in folding his solid six-foot-plus frame into the Smart Car's driving seat. "It's really surprisingly spacious," he says, unconvincingly. "Not a typical managing director's car, though, is it?"

This is what they call walking — or rather driving — the talk. Over the 10 years he's headed St Austell Brewery Staughton has championed the environment.

While buzzing about Cornwall in his bright yellow bubble certainly makes a statement (and often gets him into an unlikely space in a busy pub car park), he wants to help save the planet, and in particular this bit of the planet, sticking out preposterously from England's bottom left-hand corner.

"It's expected of us here to be aware of how we use the earth's natural resources. We use as little as we need and put back what we can. It's not just PR, not just being seen to be doing something. It's more serious than that. We've got to deliver.

"St Austell has been serious about local sourcing for a long time, and we're lucky that there's a lot of what we need on our doorstep. It means paying a premium price, but it's still value for money and we're supporting local businesses.

"Thirty years ago all visitors wanted to do was drink McEwans or whatever they had at home. Now they want local produce. They want a local beer and a pasty, and they want to go into a pub and bump into local fishermen."

Environmental initiatives​

Staughton has become something of a custodian of the local environment.

A few years ago he set up a body called Clean Cornwall with a mission to keep the county tidy. Not a bad effort for a London boy who got the call to join the family business when he was 18.

"Cornwall wasn't as attractive then," he recalls. "I knew nobody down here and I was pretty lonely. I felt I had to work twice as hard to prove myself, to show that I wasn't here because of a silver spoon.

"But you do the best with the hand you're dealt. As managing director I've aimed to get the right people in the right jobs and that's helped me. I'm surrounded by people who are better than me at what they do. My job is to pull them together as a team."

It's also true that Staughton has not been ashamed to face up to the weaknesses in the business. It was he, for instance, who coined the term "St Awful Ales".

"There was a problem with our reputation for beer and we had to confront it," he says. "We knew we had to be driven by quality, so we hired a new brewer and went back to basics.

"We were an early adopter of Cask Marque, which gave us a quality standard to aim for. It was a means to an end for us and it's come good. Since Roger Ryman arrived as head brewer in 1999 we've gone from brewing 15,000 barrels a year to 55,000 barrels.

"It's been an exciting journey. When you look at ourselves, Skinners and Sharps, Cornish beer is on a high."

Building on success​

Expansion continues at St Austell. A new bottling line has put the company "in control from grain to glass", as Staughton puts it, and a new distribution centre has helped make important cost savings, which means profits are up despite static volumes.

"The positive thing about the recession is that it has made us look at costs in detail, and we're working from a stronger foundation now," says Staughton. He's pleased, too, that when times were good St Austell invested in its pubs. When credit crunched the estate was in good shape and that's meant the company is buying new houses rather than spending money on major refurbs.

A budget of £5m has been set aside for acquisitions and St Austell will be cherry-picking larger, £1m-plus sites to add to both its managed and tenanted estates.

When the recession hit, Staughton bravely announced his aim was to keep every St Austell pub trading. That hasn't quite happened, he admits.

"There are too many pubs, sadly. Our challenge is to keep our pubs alive, but there may be a handful that go. We've had the odd closure, but they have been few and far between. Last year was better than we expected, actually. We were planning for Armageddon, but it didn't turn out that way.

"We have benefited from people taking their holidays here rather than going abroad. Numbers weren't up, but the ones who came spent more time down here. And there's been a positive start to this year thanks to the BA strikes, the ash cloud and the exchange rate — it continues to look positive.

"But while I'm someone who sees my glass as half full, I have a concern for smaller tenancies. We can be flexible with our support, but there are a number that are hanging on, and there is a question mark over their future. Inevitably some pubs will need to be sold if we can't find the right tenants for them.

"We're really lucky here that the quality of life attracts new licensees," he continues. "Cornwall is in vogue at the moment and good licensees are happy to move out of city centres to be here — that's where Cornwall comes into its own."

Not all Cornish pubs are in idyllic harbour settings, though. There are parts of Cornwall that tourists seldom see, where pubs are struggling, such as the villages north of Launceston, which have been hurt by the drop in the china-clay industry.

"People don't realise that Cornwall has one of the lowest GDPs in Europe," says Staughton. "It's tough to attract tenants to these community pubs, and they're often unaware of what they're taking on.

"What we do revolves around character licensees who have a relationship with their customers. They aren't just operators, they're part of a hub in their communities. So there's a fine judgement for us to make on recruitment. A good licensee can run a pigsty and people will come. But sometimes you think you've found that good licensee and they prove you wrong."

Offering support​

St Austell, in common with other family brewers, has increased support for its 150 traditional tenancies in recent times.

"Twenty years ago you could let tenants get on with it and call in for a pint now and then to see how they were getting on. Now even the most experienced need support and guidance. None of us know it all."

Since last year, tenants in their first year have had extra help in the shape of a dedicated expert — tenanted estate manager Jim Sloan. His job is to make sure they acquire the basics of a good pub business, and so far it's working.

"From our perspective the tenanted house system ain't broke," says Staughton. "Our churn is low and I believe the traditional tie still brings tremendous benefits to pubs."

He's wary of further Government interference in the industry. The election was a good one for Cornwall, he thinks. "Now, from all six Cornish MPs being in opposition, we have all six in Government, and that's got to be positive. It was hugely challenging for us before.

"What we need now is a moratorium for a year on any licensing reforms. They need to let us just get on with business."

My kind of pub​

"The London Inn in Padstow is a classic local community boozer — food is not its primary focus. It's welcoming, full of local fishermen and run by a couple of fantastic tenants in Mike and Pauline Meredith. In the holiday season you get just the right blend of local characters and visitors.

"Nearer to where I live, though, it's the Jubilee Inn at Pelynt, a great tenanted pub (run by Charlie and Carole Edgeler) with lots of locals and a few visitors, which does superb food. It's not because they're St Austell pubs. They just happen to be the best pubs around!"

Key dates​

• 1851 — St Austell Brewery founded by James Staughton's great great grandfather, Walter Hicks

• 1979 — David Staughton, James's father, becomes company chairman, succeeded by cousin Piers Thompson in 2000

• 1980 — Staughton joins the family business as a brewery a