Page 3 - Chase Case Study

The Family Business

Chase Distillery is a family business, with its founder William
Chase and his two sons directly involved with its running.

His son Harry, 29, looks after the farm as well as running his

own farming business. His other son James, 26, oversees
"meet and greet" and helps introduce the cosmopolitan,

Instagram-your-cocktail crowd to Chase whilst running the

company's Twitter feed, he has his own bar in Mayfair.

The Chase Distillery team has grown rapidly but is still very

much a family business, with “Chase employing his wife and

sons in key positions in the company. It's quite an
egalitarian enterprise, with everyone being head of

something, from William Chase as Head Honcho, to those

on the bottling line - Dave, Peter, Luda, Lyn and Phillip -

being Head of Hand Bottling. Other team members include
a Head of Money, Head of Bee Keeping and Head of

Harvesting Potatoes. Sounds like a fun place to work!”

Chase harvests organic potatoes from his farm to be turned

into vodka- and then gin - which means Chase Distillery can

claim to be Britain's only single-estate distillery. Moreover,

as well as fermenting potatoes to make spirits, they do the

same with the cider apples harvested from their orchards.
Chase had plenty of other sites in Herefordshire to choose

from, having spent £20 million buying up farms and

farmland with the cash from his sale of Tyrrells crisps.

“With the continual price pressure from the supermarkets

as well, I realised I had to change direction. I wanted to

remain in farming and produce a great tasting product we
could make from potatoes.”