Dewhurst butchers bringing home the bacon again for new owners

by Clinton Manning

DEWHURST butchers could return as a force on UK high streets for the first time in 20 years.
Its products could also be launched in supermarkets following a £3million fundraising by The Brand Cellar.
The company, backed by a dozen heavyweight investors including former Wembley boss Sir Rodney Walker, has snapped up 10 “heritage brands” it plans to revitalise.

Go Camping for 95p! Vouchers collectable in the Daily and Sunday Mirror until 11th August .Dewhurst, which had 1,000 high street stores in its heyday, is one of the first it believes will be bringing home the bacon.
Another of the backers Jonathan Hick, who starred in an episode of Channel 4’s The Secret Millionaire, said a deal had already been done to make Dewhurst cooking foil.
He said: “I don’t see why it can’t be on the high street and in supermarkets and on tea towels and roasting tins as well as pies and sausages.”
Former Kwik Save boss David Birchall, The Brand Cellar’s chief executive, told Your Money he believed three of the first four brands being relaunched would each have sales of £100m within three years. One of the others, Glen Rossie Whisky, is nearly 200 years old.
The group has signed a deal with Status Quo front-man Francis Rossi to set it apart from Scotch rivals and hopes to launch the spirit in India and China as well as the UK.
“There are eight million whisky drinkers in the UK but about 300 million in India,” said Birchall.
The third £100m-a-year business, they believe, is Conway Stewart, a luxury pen maker founded in 1905, and a brand favoured by wartime leader Winston Churchill.
The pens, handmade in Plymouth, sell for £500 to £10,000 but Birchall says they are negotiating with manufacturers in China to make cheaper versions to sell to customers in department stores and airports.
The final business they are hoping to kick-start immediately is Zorbit, creator of the original towelling nappy brand in 1926.
The Brand Cellar plans to move Zorbit into baby care products such as lotions and shampoo.
Hick says for now, the other six businesses will be “preserved and left to mature” in its vaults.

Go Camping for 95p! Vouchers collectable in the Daily and Sunday Mirror until 11th August.