Belvoir’s Elderflower Cordial:
quality quaffing for quarter of a century
It’s not often you get to nibble at an elephant’s bottom, but here at Belvoir Fruit Farms we’ve been doing it for twenty-five years.
Don’t worry, such peculiar metaphors won’t get us fired. Because believe it or not, we’re paraphrasing Pev Manners, our beloved MD.
Pev’s ‘elephant’ is the adult soft drinks market – a multi-million pound industry. And although our company has grown tremendously in the last quarter of a century, Pev insists that Belvoir Fruit Farms is only nibbling at that big elephant’s bottom.
Elephants’ behinds aside, how did Belvoir Fruit Farms become a much loved addition to cupboards and (once opened) fridges across the world? On our twenty-fifth anniversary, we thought we’d shed some light on the history of our delightful drinks.
Once upon a time
The Belvoir Fruit Farms story begins a long time ago, in the Manners family kitchen. It was here a very young Pev and his sisters would help their mother, Lady Mary Manners, infuse the blossoms they had picked from wild elderflower trees around the family farm.
“I remember mum and dad dashing back home from Royal Ascot every year, getting out of their smart clothes, donning dungarees, then we’d all jump into the cars and set off to scour the country for elderflower blossoms,” recalls Pev. “Nanny would stay at home to slice the lemons and a farm hand would mix the sugar and water. We’d return with the elderflowers, looking like we’d been in a yellow snow storm because of all the pollen.”
“We made elderflower cordial for just ourselves and family and friends. But it became so popular that people would beg, steal and borrow to get hold of a bottle. At the time our pick-your-own fruit farm wasn’t doing terribly well and so my father decided we should try our hand at selling the cordial, making us the first company to go into commercial production of elderflower cordial.”
So in 1984 we began trading as Belvoir Fruit Farms and selling our naturally delicious elderflower cordial. Virgin Atlantic had just made its inaugural flight from Gatwick to Newark Liberty, and the world was under a repressive, totalitarian regime led by Big Brother [you’ve been reading too many books – Ed].
Pev’s father, Lord John, would pack boxes of hand-made cordial into the boot of his car and set off to visit local delicatessens and farm shops to cut a deal. He made an unlikely salesman in his country tweeds and battered Mercedes, complete with the family dog and wheat literally growing in the boot!.
In that first year, we shifted eighty-eight cases of cordial (with each case holding twelve bottles).
Here comes the son
Pev joined Belvoir Fruit Farms full-time in 1992 and soon after, together with his father, took the decision to close the fruit farm and PYO business to focus exclusively on the burgeoning drinks company.
Production has long since moved out of the family kitchen and down to the fruit farm, located on the beautiful estate of Belvoir Castle in Grantham, Lincolnshire (home to Pev’s cousin, the Duke of Rutland). ‘Nanny’ has also been replaced by former shepherdess Phyllis Howitt, who arrived on the farm to do some casual work in 1984 – and never left. Phyllis still single-handedly makes all the products today, infusing the elderflowers in huge vats (purchased from an old cheese farm) and hand pressing all the fruit.
The recipe for the elderflower cordial is still the same as the one Pev’s mother used to make. It was given to her by her friend Lady Astor of Cliveden and it’s rumoured that it was a firm favourite amongst the 50s and 60s socialites frequenting the Italianate stately home.
“It’s a clean, fresh drink, but with the complexity of wine,” says Pev. “People want traditional products; something that’s natural but tastes great too.”
Elderflower still remains the bulk of the business and demand is so great that orders are dispatched across Europe, America, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, Hong Kong, Japan and Korea.
Drinking to the future
Lots of things have changed in twenty-five years, but our commitment to using only natural goodness has never wavered. All the drinks, which include an organic range, are 100% natural and free from artificial flavours, sweeteners, colours, preservatives or any other nasties.
The Belvoir Fruit Farms range now includes fifteen cordial varieties, nine pressés and five Good Stuff juice drinks. And although the fruits and flowers vary from bottle to bottle, one ingredient (the key to the magic of Belvoir) remains the same – spring water. It’s been naturally filtered through limestone for centuries and is at the heart of all the Belvoir Fruit Farms range.
This year, we’ll sell nine million bottles of our lovely little drinks. A big thank you from Pev and all the team if you’ve bought one – we promise we’ll never rest on our laurels. (This year we’ve already released two new new twists on our famous elderflower recipe.)
Meaning that next year, we’ll still be nibbling at that elephant’s big old bottom.
Happy 25th Birthday Belvoir!
