British Invasion
Britain’s largest and longest established High Street tea and coffee retailer brings “coffee alternative” to the U.S.
Susan H. Fishman

Whittard of Chelsea’s store along Carnaby Street in London is similar to streetfront units it will open in the U.S.

With 120 years of experience brewing, serving and selling the finest teas from around the world, Whittard of Chelsea knows the power of a good cup of tea. Now, the leading tea and coffee specialist wants to show America what tea drinking is all about with an aggressive nationwide retail expansion program in shopping centers and popular destinations across the U.S. The company has plans for 30 stores along the east and west coasts by the middle of 2008 with a goal of 300 units across the country in the next 5 years.

Nobody is better positioned to bring tea to Americans, according to Andrew Richardson, director of USA Operations for Whittard. But don’t expect to see people walking down the street with a 20-ounce paper cup that says “Whittard” across the side of it.

“Although we want to position ourselves as a national coffee alternative, it’s not on a to-go basis,” Richardson explains.

A Whittard of Chelsea street store.

The company certainly has no intention of competing with a coffee powerhouse like Starbucks, adds Richardson, but Starbucks is, in fact, one of the reasons Whittard of Chelsea believes it will be successful in the U.S.

“Starbucks has done an incredible job of putting a brand to specialty coffee,” says Richardson. “And while we certainly don’t plan to go head to head and compete with Starbucks, we think there’s a significant market for us in the states because of what Starbucks has done in specialty coffee over the last 20 to 25 years.”

Company founder Walter Whittard broke away from the family business to establish his tea company in 1886.  Within 20 years, he had branched into coffee and was stocking ‘new teas’ from Ceylon and Kenya. Whittard’s two sons, Hugh and then Dick, ran the business successfully through the 1950s, ‘60s and ‘70s. They led the movement away from house blends into new origin coffees and saw the revival of herbal teas and the start of the flavored tea boom. Giles Hilton, now Whittard’s master of tea and coffee, joined in 1976, just in time for the ‘foody’ ‘80s with greater awareness of origins, flavor and health.

Whittard of Chelsea has gradually built up a portfolio of over 130 shops throughout Great Britain and more than 30 more worldwide (Far East, Middle East, Europe and Latin America), with its most aggressive expansion in recent years. The company is now based at Stockwell in London, just south of Chelsea. In January 2006, the company was acquired by Julian Graves Ltd, a British retailer of natural health foods with 300 stores, in a bid backed by retail giant Bauger of Iceland.

Going beyond tea, Whittard of Chelsea is also a purveyor of chinaware and other tea-related goods.

Whittard of Chelsea Inc. (the U.S. division of the U.K. parent company) will open its first store on famed Newbury Street in Boston’s upmarket Back Bay area, and another in Boston’s Faneuil Hall, footsteps away from where the historic and infamous Boston Tea Party took place in 1773. More Whittard of Chelsea stores will follow in Horton Plaza, San Diego; South Coast Plaza in Orange County, California; and San Diego’s Fashion Valley in spring 2007.

The company’s product line has been historically based on the finest premium tea and coffee, sourced from tea gardens and coffee plantations around the world — some of which the company has maintained trading relationships with for almost 100 years. But the biggest draw is the company’s consumable goods. Additionally Whittard offers custom-designed ceramics and giftware collections, many of which change seasonally, with new special or collectors’ edition designs appearing on display throughout the year. The stores also feature a  ‘blend-your-own tea zone’ where customers can experience the art of creating their own tea blends, as well as a more interactive tasting facility in the U.S. stores. Each store will also offer demonstrations by knowledgeable, London-trained staff on a daily basis, with regular special presentations by the British company’s tea experts.

Whittard of Chelsea started as a traditional British tea and coffee emporium, and while the store design has changed over the years, the company wants to bring some of that old Emporium feel to the U.S. market, with a slightly more contemporary feel.

Whittard’s American shop-fit will revert to the company’s original “Welsh dresser”-style shelves/displays, which will allow a more interactive product display and demonstration. Shop-fit standards will include the use of natural/real woods to better reflect and display the quality of goods and merchandise.

“We’re already making some changes from how we set our stores up on a typical basis in the U.K. to meet some slightly different demands that we expect as far as the U.S. market is concerned,” says Richardson.

The packaged tea section of Whittard of Chelsea.

The company plans to roll out 30 units by the middle of 2008, starting on the east coast from Boston down to New York, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Richmond and, ultimately, Miami. At the same time, shops will roll northward up the west coast from San Diego to Los Angeles to San Francisco. The rollout will also fill in some major cities in the center of the country, such as Denver, Phoenix, Chicago, St. Louis, Dallas and/or Houston. Some stores in Canada are also planned.

“We definitely want to put a unit or two in Seattle,” Richardson adds, “because if we’re billing ourselves as a coffee alternative, we have to show that we can do it in Coffeetown, USA.”

The first 30 Whittard of Chelsea stores will be corporate units, and while the company currently has no plans to franchise, Richardson says, “Never say never.”

“If we did consider any type of franchising, it would be a significant master franchise arrangement,” he says.

As a lifestyle retailer, Whittard of Chelsea will be targeting premium lifestyle centers, as well as shopping malls and retail shopping streets like Boston’s Newbury Street. The company is currently working, on an exclusive basis, with real estate firm Winick Realty Group in New York.

With what might seem an obvious competitor in a company like Teavana, Whittard of Chelsea sees little competition in its U.S. venture, according to Richardson.

“I don’t think we’re really that competitive; in fact, I think we could complement one another – their focus being the Far Eastern side of things and ours being from an historic perspective and a British and European perspective.”

“We’ll be a sustainable coffee alternative,” he adds. “We don’t do anything but what we do. And there’s a difference in the way we’ll be doing coffee and the way everybody else in America does coffee.”


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