Yahoo Finance Inside Fortnum & Mason’s plan to bring luxury to the masses
Fortnum & Mason is attempting to shed its image as a grocer to the super-rich and attract a wider audience with a revamp of its flagship store.
The 316-year-old retailer is reopening the third floor of its shop on Piccadilly in the West End as a “creative hub” focused on food and drink. The floor previously housed a menswear department which was closed during the pandemic.
Tom Athron, chief executive at Fortnum & Mason, said: “The whole strategy around Fortnum has been, for a while now, to become more relevant to more people more often.
“It’s less about a sort of gross exclusivity or the mystique of formidableness… but much more about being warm and welcoming and inclusive and all of those things”.
Despite Fortnum & Mason's reputation as a destination for rich tourists, he said the revamp was aimed more at domestic shoppers.
He said: “I love our overseas customers, they are an incredibly important part of what we do. But if I was to design propositions that would just appeal to tourists, I think that it would be less attractive to our domestic customer base. Whereas if I focus on becoming more relevant to our domestic customers, the tourists will come anyway.”
In what Fortnum & Mason claimed was its biggest investment in the store in a decade, the renovated third floor will host cooking demonstrations by international and in-house chefs as well as a gin distillery.
To cater to a growing number of drinkers moderating their intake, Mr Athron said the distillery will make a low-alcohol gin as well as full strength spirits.
The revamp will also include a hamper personalisation service and a “Cook Shop” which will sell kitchenware, cook books and ingredients such as oils, spices and seasonings.
Mr Athron added: “Not only did Covid give us the sort of time and space to really think about what we might want to do with the space, but it's allowed us to think about what direction we want to take Fortnums in more broadly.”
He said inspiration for the refurbishment came after the retailer began hosting supper clubs for customers.
Mr Athron said: “I just noticed that there was a different bunch of people coming to the supper clubs. They were younger, they were much more interested in food… provenance, and sourcing, they wanted to understand where the carrots were grown, whether or not a fish was line caught, and the impact that vegetable growing was having on the soil.
“It was thinking from those supper clubs that then made us think, well maybe we could take the ethos that that's given us and make it real.”
Fortnum & Mason was founded in 1707 by Hugh Mason and William Fortnum, a footman to Queen Anne, to sell discarded candles from St James Palace.
Over the centuries, it has maintained a long-running relationship with the royal family, and currently holds two royal warrants, for the late Queen Elizabeth II and King Charles.
In addition to its Piccadilly flagship, it also owns a store in Hong Kong as well as travel outlets in St Pancras Station and Heathrow's Terminal 5.
Fortnum & Mason’s Piccadilly store is claimed to be the birthplace of the Scotch egg, which the company says it invented in 1738 to sell to travellers passing through the area.
It is currently owned by the billionaire Weston family through its holding company Wittington Investments, which also owns a majority stake in Primark’s parent company, Associated British Foods. Until December 2021, the Canadian family also owned Selfridges before selling it to a Thai and Austrian joint venture for £4bn.
Fortnum & Mason posted its first loss in five years in 2021 after being forced to close during lockdowns, but returned to profit in 2022 amid a resurgence of domestic and international visitors which pushed its sales up 42pc to £187m.
