EXCLUSIVE: Bettys brews up another successful year's trading

The family-owned business, which runs the Yorkshire Tea and Taylors brands - as well as the iconic Bettys tea rooms around Yorkshire - reported a pre-tax profit of £9.6m to the year ending October 2015.

Turnover was £163.4m for the year which also saw the group garner a number of national and international awards for its products, employment record and philanthropy.

In a statement for The Yorkshire Post, Bettys & Taylors Group Finance and Resources Director, Paul Cogan, attributed the organisation’s fine year to its willingness to listen to and respond to increasingly diverse consumer demand.

“This has been a year in which competitive pressures in our core markets continued to grow.

“We have responded to the competitive challenge by listening carefully to our customers and developing new and innovative products to delight them.

“Throughout the year we also continued to invest strongly to support our core brands. These results demonstrate the success of this approach and our genuine passion for delivering high quality products that reflect our Yorkshire heritage.”

Based in Harrogate, Bettys & Taylors comprises the six Bettys Café Tea Rooms, tea and coffee merchants Taylors of Harrogate, Bettys Craft Bakery, Bettys Cookery School and bettys.co.uk.

More than 1.3 million customers a year visit a Bettys tea room and Taylors of Harrogate boasts a market leading fresh ground coffee range.

Yorkshire Tea remains the third best selling black tea blend in the country and was named as one of the top 10 UK Brands in the annual YouGov survey.

The firm’s supply chain is extremely diverse and spans the globe to includes tea estates, coffee farms and Yorkshire farmers.

Its commitment to environmental responsibility was underlined when it was honoured as a global leader in sustainability by the Rainforest Alliance, receiving the Sustainable Standard-Setter Award in May at a ceremony in New York.

In October 2015, Bettys won Best Medium Group Restaurant Employer at the Caterer.com Best Employers in Hospitality Awards.

Around 360 of the 1,400 employees have more than ten years’ service with the business ran on a stakeholder model that includes a profit-sharing Group Prosperity Scheme for staff.

A bonus scheme has been operating for more than 30 years and over the course of the year, staff received the equivalent of an additional five weeks pay through the scheme.

The Group also contributed £364,000 to charitable and community projects in Yorkshire and in tea and coffee growing countries.

The prestige of the brand was underscored when earlier this year when Their Royal Highnesses The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall made a private visit to Bettys & Taylors for a behind the scenes tour which included tea tasting, decorating Easter eggs and taking part in a class at Bettys Cookery School.