British by appointment
From far and wide, shoppers flood to Fortnums
Of all London’s department stores, engines of the consumer spending that has done so much to support our ailing economy, the one that seems least suited to the fast-paced city in which it finds itself is Fortnum & Mason. Unlike Selfridges, Fortnum’s has never been wrapped in a giant artwork by the fashionable Sam Taylor-Wood; nor does it affect the atmosphere of a club by playing thumping chart hits. Unlike Harrods, Fortnum’s enjoys none of the quirky renown that derives from a connection with Mohamed Fayed. For designer clothes, you’re better off at Liberty or Harvey Nichols; and for good value it is hard to beat John Lewis.
But Fortnum’s does have an excellent reputation for food. Dominic Weston, who runs the grocery division, can show you some amazing products: speciality teas such as Butterfly in Love, each leaf individually tied into butterfly shapes, or Fairy Lady’s Golden Rings, which costs £70 for a 125g bag. “It comes from just one place in China,” explains Weston. “We account for about a quarter of the entire crop.” Among the conserves, he can show you a jelly made according to a traditional recipe with rose petals. There’s not much of this stuff available – not anywhere – which is why Fortnum’s charges £6.75 for a single 340g jar.
Largely because of its food hall, Fortnum’s has long attracted prosperous tourists, looking for tasteful souvenirs of Britain. On the seemingly typical day I visit, a French couple with baby pause to consider clotted cream and miniature scones. Among the teas, a pair of young Japanese women wander round looking for a gift: they examine a box that includes a silver strainer, but finally settle on a selection of blends from Fortnum’s three restaurants. By the lifts – beneath royal warrants from the Queen, the Queen Mother and Prince Charles – an American in his 70s, accompanied by his wife, approaches a member of staff dressed in tails and pinstriped trousers, removes his hat and asks, “Excuse me, sir, but where are the dried mushrooms?”
Fortnum’s positively cultivates its status as a tourist destination: for instance, by dressing staff in old-fashioned outfits, just as the Tower of London retains Beefeater uniforms; by getting them use “Mr” and “Mrs” when speaking to each other; and modelling its interior on a museum (menswear was inspired by the Sir John Soane museum). Fortnum’s does have a colourful history, going back to 1707. Its founders, Mr Fortnum and Mr Mason, make an appearance in Alan Bennett’s The Madness of King George. However there’s a danger inherent in being quaintly historical: just as few Londoners visit the Tower, so they may come to regard the shop on Piccadilly as something strictly for tourists. While sales rose – as they have for several years in succession – that may not have mattered. But problems with the railways, foot and mouth and the events of September 11 have caused a substantial drop in the number of visitors to London, and consequently a drop in sales. If Fortnum’s doesn’t do something to improve its appeal to the natives, the consequences could be grim.
“We are getting Londoners in,” insists Jana Khayat, who succeeded her father Garry Weston as chairman. “We particularly noticed that last Christmas.” As for the idea that Fortnum’s is unfashionable, she says, “My sister [Kate Hobhouse, Fortnum’s director – food development] was at a dinner with someone from Notting Hill, who told her they went to Fortnum’s before the theatre. They thought it would be ghastly and frumpy but actually found it comfortable… There is this terrible desire [among retailers] to be trendy. Fortnum’s should be slightly eccentric. There is a quirky quality. A lot of people like relief from hipsterism.”
The Weston family, which has controlled Fortnum’s for decades, recently decided to take the company private after more than 60 years in public ownership – prompted by a letter from the Listing Authority, in March, which pointed out that less than the requisite 25 per cent of shares was in public hands.
The family’s Wittington Investments, which also owns Ryvita crispbread, Twinings tea and the home furnishings retailer Heals, has made a 600p per share cash offer – exactly 300p lower than the 1996 peak, but more than 300p higher than the price at the start of 2001. Shareholders will meet on Monday to consider the proposal.
After trying every department, Khayat moved into fashion. She left, briefly, to have children, but came back and took on the job of chairman earlier than had been expected because her father fell ill. She took up the position in June last year, soon after the appointment of a new managing director, Stuart Gates. As a management team, they make a compelling partnership: in appearance something like the young Susannah York and Gorden Kaye from ’Allo ’Allo; but that is unfair to Gates, whom Khayat describes as full of energy, good with people and responsible for “revolutionising” the food department.
Hobhouse, who went into food after the company’s management training programme, was present at a meeting on Fortnum’s top floor, at which the Financial Times witnessed discussions relating to new products. These included: honey from hives that can’t be moved around because of foot and mouth; Dundee cake tins with a too-boring design; shortbread with a perilously short shelf-life; farmhouse biscuits that can’t be exported because the chocolate might acquire a bloom in the heat; chutneys; mayonnaise; tapas; glacé fruit; oils; seasonal preserves; tinned vintage sardines with bones that dissolve if the can is turned regularly; and designs for the lid of a new gentleman’s relish. Also present, among others, were Jim Corfield, merchandise manager – food, and the grocery guy, Dominic Weston (no relation to the other Westons).
At one point, Corfield took a penknife from his pocket to open the cellophane wrappers on several types of Italian biscuit. There was a moment of silence as everybody considered taste and consistency. Corfield said: “Not the most exciting thing in the world.” A second biscuit from the same range was deemed a bit soft. (“What’s the date on it?”) A third, tasting of aniseed, got an approving “Mmm.” But Weston’s summary was downbeat: “Not a roaring reception.”
Next, a product from Duchy Originals. “They didn’t want to give us that exclusively,” reports Weston. The supplier also wishes to provide this item to Waitrose. “I think we will have to take it, but not push it too much.” Moving on, to a new line of Bakewell tarts, he says, “We’re looking at a sale of £4.95.” At this, everybody sucks in breath. Somebody points out that mince pies cost just £3.95. Weston says “I will telephone and have a polite word. I will be polite.” To the Financial Times, Corfield explains: “We’re not like a supermarket. We have to work with suppliers to come up with a solution. We may be able to raise the order [to reduce the unit cost]but we don’t want to find ourselves, in three years, with 17,000 pies left over.”
Another troublesome issue is Belgian butter biscuits. “If we change the selection,” says Weston, as Hobhouse passes round samples, “we can reduce the price by 30 per cent.” “This is one of the big questions for us,” Corfield explains. “It’s a line that sells well: we’ve been selling something like 5,000 of the old selection each year. Do we change it? If we do, we can either reduce the cost or put in 30 per cent more for the same price.” Designing a new tin might cost £5,000. Then there is the cost of tooling, which could be as much as £48,000. But that’s out of the question, Corfield concludes, so Fortnum’s will have to accept a ready-made tin.
To sell the best available products, it is necessary to know the best suppliers. Fortnum’s buyers go to trade fairs but they must also look elsewhere. Dominic Weston, for instance, makes trips around the country and overseas every week. “We try to see small regional suppliers who don’t deal with the supermarkets,” he explains. Why? “Because a lot of them were once just Mr and Mrs Bloggs working in their kitchen. If the supermarkets want 2m units, they’re going to have to compromise on flavour – and buy a lot of machinery.”
In April – around the time Fortnum’s was planning to shoot pictures for its Christmas catalogue, and having problems getting hold of a tree and the right kind of ivy – I travelled with Corfield to visit one of its bigger suppliers, Wiltshire Tracklements. The company was founded in a domestic kitchen in 1970 by a food enthusiast, William Tullberg – the sort of person, according to his son Guy, who gets up each morning and asks himself, “What shall I eat today?” Today, Tracklements employs 32 people, producing jellies, sauces and condiments for the Fortnum’s label and also under its own name. In the boxy units women stand on ladders to stir steaming cauldrons and others sit round tables sticking labels on jars and tying them up with ribbons. For Corfield, the trip was routine: just a chance to say hello to old friends over lunch. But something weighed on his mind. Shortly before, he’d put in a big order for Christmas supplies: among other things, Wiltshire Tracklements was to produce 30,000 jars of brandy butter. “At Christmas you have to take your life in your hands,” he explained with evident anxiety as we drove back along the M4. “You have to order enough, and not too much.” In the event, some 20,000 jars will be sold in hampers. Of the rest, about 8,000 will be sold in the six weeks leading up to Christmas.
As well as the food for taking home in fancy packaging, Fortnum’s does food for consumption on the premises. Its three restaurants – not counting the staff canteen – between them produce about 35,000 meals each month. The celebrated Welsh rarebit remains available in each one, but apart from that there has been an attempt to differentiate them, says the man in charge, Robert Marsham. The coffee shop was removed from the Patio, making it more of a restaurant. The St James’s, slightly more formal, is best suited to people doing business and to local residents. The most traditional restaurant, and the most profitable, is the Fountain – destination of choice for a particular type of customer, as Gates explains: “People who were brought here by an aunt or godparent for their first grown-up meal and then veered away, not coming back till they were older.”
According to Marsham, Fortnum’s makes a speciality of catering to people before a trip to the theatre. (But not afterwards: doors close at 8pm and the restaurants shut an hour later.) When The Phantom of the Opera first opened in 1986, as Marsham recalls, there were few restaurants between Fortnum’s and Shaftesbury Avenue and only one coffee shop. Now, with Starbucks and Costa Coffee and Pret A Manger and Aroma there are more like 10 coffee shops; and plenty of restaurants. Why should people come here? “At the end of the day, if you’re just looking for a coffee, do you want waiter service or self-service with Styrofoam cups?” The difference, he says, is the “Fortnum’s experience”.
Intrigued, I decided to try this for myself, bringing my niece and nephew to Fortnum’s before a film at Leicester Square. In the food hall, Kate, 15, and Daniel, 12, were astounded by the assortment of chocolates available. For my sake, they stared dutifully at various exotic teas – and with consternation at the price tags – but reverted to hungry appreciation at the cake counter, making plentiful use of their pointing fingers.
Moving into the Fountain, Kate looked around the room before asking in a whisper, “Are all these people rich?” which gives you some idea how I may have described Fortnum’s to her beforehand. Then she ordered a milk shake and a sundae. Daniel selected a different sundae and an organic ginger beer which, regrettably, made him cough. In the event I was the only one having tea, as such, so I was surprised when it appeared in a vast pot. But as soon as I’d poured my first cup the waitress hurried back: this pot was for table 21. That explains a lot, I said, but she was too busy to chat. Nor did she seem to care that I’d already poured myself a cup. She picked it up and carried it away, emerging from the kitchen seconds later to deliver it to table 21. Only after that did a second waitress arrive with a tiny pot that poured no faster than a leaking tap and soon ran out of tea. Of this sequence of events Kate and Daniel disapproved. So did I.
It’s common, says Marsham, to see customers in the restaurants carrying bags from Harrods and Selfridges. That’s fine, he says, because Fortnum’s doesn’t sell many of the products those stores carry. It doesn’t carry white goods, for instance. Nor does it have a wedding department. Does it need so many restaurants? Why not close one to make room for fridges and washing machines? One reason may be this: set in the heartland of London’s gentlemen’s clubs, Fortnum’s has come to function as a cosy refuge to people – notably, women – who can’t get into those exclusive institutions.
In keeping with this clubby character are the special events put on for account customers (and for anybody else who sees the promotional ads, usually in the Daily Telegraph). Fashion shows, for instance, such as the one I attended, at which members of the audience – almost entirely female – ticked off the outfits that appealed most to them on a pre-printed sheet, while seven models ranged the St James’s restaurant, pouting and thrusting their hips. (The outfits that appealed most, it seemed, were the ones for Ascot.)
Or cooking demonstrations. Antonio Carluccio, Sophie Grigson and Jocelyn Dimbleby have all been in, but Marsham says some celebrity chefs are too expensive or otherwise high-maintenance: “Some of them demand huge fees,” he says. “As soon as they have been on TV they charge an arm and a leg. Twenty-thousand pounds, for example. I would not pay that. They also want a car.”
One whose requirements were less steep is Pat Chapman, whose “Cooking With Spice!” demo took place recently in the Burlington Room on the fourth floor. He worked in a specially constructed kitchen unit, wheeled out of an annex. This had mirrors mounted overhead so that the audience of about 70 people – again, mostly retired women, but with some men and younger types – could see directly into the saucepans on the hob.
To get into the Burlington Room, visitors were obliged to walk through the Silk Road, a special display of items from China, India, Persia, Uzbekistan and Arabia. This show has been curated, if that’s the word, by Mauro Camorani, who runs the third-floor department best described as a combination of menswear and expensive gifts.
Do non-food departments feel inferior? Not necessarily – though it must grate when shoppers express surprise, as they often do, to learn that Fortnum’s offers more than food – because like all department stores, Fortnum’s profitability is complex. The food hall makes the best sales per square foot and the restaurants are cash rich. But Camorani’s department has the highest profit margins.
There was a time, Khayat tells me, when people thought everything sold at Fortnum’s was expensive. Not so. “But if you have a high-quality product, that’s expensive already. With rose petal jelly, for instance, you can’t easily reduce the price: there is no point trying to cut down the number of rose petals.” Gates says, “People are happy to pay for quality. Price is never an issue for our customers. We can sell jam for £7 a jar and people queue at the door to buy it.”
Similarly, on the third floor, department, briefcases priced at £1,000 each “meet no resistance” from customers, says Camorani. Nor is it difficult to sell painted boxes for several times as much. “They’re unique pieces. A piece like that you will see in the market once every 10 years. Eighty per cent of what you see here is exclusive to us.”
Camorani’s customers routinely spend £5,000 in one go. Less common is £25,000, but that’s how much one customer spent a few months ago. Reading in his newspaper that this particular customer had been knighted, Camorani thought it might be a nice to send a hamper of fruit by way of congratulations. But he would never do more than that to remind customers that Fortnum’s is there. “Cold calling would not be our style.”
Indeed food permeates even this department. If Camorani hears of somebody spending a lot in menswear he might offer them a complimentary lunch downstairs. After that, he says, “They don’t usually come back and ask for a discount or tell you they’ve changed their minds.”
24 November 01