It’s no secret that the brewery sector has been hit hard, with the UK witnessing a record number of closures last year.
Despite the challenging operational environment, Spanish beverage producer Damm has seen steady turnover and underlying recurring profit improving year on year.
International presence remains one of Damm’s key growth drivers, with its brands now available in over 130 countries and proprietary-brand exports reaching 88 markets. Today, international represents 30% of Damm’s overall business.
Investing into UK production
The company has now set a target to double its revenue by 2030, with the UK a key part of its growth strategy, currently representing 50% of all its branded beer sales.
While Damm has been serving the UK market for more than 25 years, it’s only in the last few that it has established a domestic brewery base, with its acquisition of the Bedford site.
Luke White, managing director for Damm UK, told Food Manufacture it was a case of wanting to “take destiny” into its own hands.
The Eagle Brewery in Bedford, which was Damm’s first acquisition outside of the Iberian Peninsula, has seen more than £70 million invested into it. This has gone towards the installation of a state-of-the-art canning line and enabled it to increase capacity of both kegging and brewing.
“It’s been a massive period of change,” White said. “From January onwards, there was a new piece of equipment turning up day on day.
“We’re now just short of quadruple our capacity output for Bedford [originally 1.5M hectolitres of beer]. And we’ll go a very long way to nearly filling that next year.”
Today, a number of Damm products, including its citrus fruit beer, Damm Lemon, are brewed at Eagle. Currently, its split between its own branded products and co-manufacturing operations at the site is 80-20.
“Brewing beer in the UK allows us to support local jobs, [the] local economy, [and] reduce carbon footprint,” White added on the move to localise production.
“Having local production allows us to be more reactive in market and adapt more quickly to evolving consumer trends. [But] believe it or not, we are still importing quite a lot of beer from Spain because the demand is so high.”
Why Damm not the UK?
While one might question the reasoning behind investing in the UK’s suffering beer industry, which has been plagued by red tape and high costs, but White says the country’s mature, yet innovative ale market cannot be understated.
According to the MD, when it comes to beer, the UK is about “10 years ahead” and this makes it a great testbed for the rest of the world.
At the same time, Damm has been strategic with its portfolio, capitalising on the growing UK fruit beer and low and no markets.
“Younger consumers are certainly more flavour-forward right now,” he said. “That category [fruit beer] is accelerating quickly and we’re benefitting from the likes of Damm Lemon.”
But it has also been mindful to plug gaps in its portfolio too via its partnership with Northern Monk and its more recent purchase of Old Speckled Hen, making it a serious contender within the craft beer scene.
We’re performing way ahead of the category performance at the minute – and that’s why we’re pretty confident around the future of the UK.
Luke White, managing director, Damm
Hatching a plan for Old Speckled Hen
Old Speckled Hen has a rich heritage that dates back to 1979 and a loyal following in the UK.
Damm is keen to expand this following both in the UK and beyond, with White saying he has ideas for on and off trade expansion.
Still, he added that Damm will remain loyal to its existing audience.
“We don’t want to break it. It is the number one premium bottled ale in the off trade. It’s very well respected and there is a strong demographic for consumers that enjoy that brand.
“We’re working with Greene King [its former owner] in terms of transitioning over the brand over the next 12 months, which is an exciting place for our breweries that allows us to add more jobs into Bedfordshire. But we obviously have one eye on growing that brand and we’re going to do that in a couple of ways.”
To be a serious contender in the UK, you need to have breadth.
Luke White, managing director, Damm
Offering some hints on what’s to come, he added: “We’re seeing younger consumers moving into cask brands. Cask in its rawest format is the original craft beer, so I think we can have some fun there.”
White also noted Old Speckled Hen’s strong export following, especially in the US and Australia, while highlighting the opportunity for a much wider expansion in the future.
“We sell beer in over 130 markets around the globe, and this allows us to tap into potentially new markets and new consumers abroad.”
The importance of adding breadth
But it’s not just brewing that Damm is hedging its bets on. It has also given itself breadth with the recent acquisition of Dalston Soda Co - the London brand known for its clean label fruit fizzy drinks.
This has enabled Damm to tap into the trend of premium adult soft drinks and functional beverages.
“We were very clear when we reopened the brewery in October 2025, that we wanted to become a total beverage company, not just a brewer,” added White.
“If you look at the growth of soft drinks, especially within the UK, it makes sense for us to take a step into that.
The future
While Damm is faring well in this tough economy, White recognises there are things out of the business’s control – and that’s a shared challenge across the sector.
“It’s not a single brewer or single pub or single pub company challenge […] it’s an industry challenge,“ he told Food Manufacture.
“All we can do is work with government and lobby to support the economy where possible, but they’ve got a tough job on their hands in terms of balancing fiscal policy to make sure the UK is growing.”
For White, the focus for the government needs to be across hospitality.
“No one’s really taking a look at hospitality across the board. It’s had a tough time for a number of years. The beer market is 50% smaller than it was 20 years ago.”
White added that he would be keen to see some reforms, ensuring that taxes aren’t being “double counted” with the crossovers of new regulations such as EPR, PRN and so on.
“It [the beer market] provides a significant amount of taxation for the government. As a brewer, we would love to see a reduction in beer duty. I think a drop in VAT is also going to encourage consumers to get out there spending their hard-earned cash.”
He continued: “Next year, we’re going to go into a world of DRS, which is just going to add more cost pressures on to consumers.
“I think the Government needs to look at how they balance all of those along with business rates to make sure that, one, we can move the economy forward but, two, we don’t make the sector unattractive because we’re having to drive so much price through to [the] end consumer just to offset a lot of these costs.”
Whether or not reforms will happen remains to be seen, but regardless Damm is set on growth.
Phase two of the Eagle Brewery makeover
This includes phase two of the Bedford transformation.
“Phase one was all about getting the brewery to a position where we had some really strong capabilities that we could use right now,” White explained.
“Phase two is about how to add on capabilities and capacity. Some of these projects [e.g. a new centrifuge] weren’t due to start until 2027/2028 – we’ve actually now brought them forward.”
Investment has been earmarked for projects that will look at innovation with craft beer, as well as energy and water reduction.
“All this investment is moving forward and will be done on a case by case basis, but we have an entire roadmap that we will follow as and when consumer or legislative needs are required.”
The investment has already created 50 jobs, with an additional 50 approved and recruitment underway.
All the investments that we do are long term and they’re very strategic.
Luke White, managing director, Damm
“We’ll go through another period of growth into next year and there will be more focused on how we can utilise technology better,” continued White. “We’re very fortunate that Damm owns its own AI company.”
The brewery is now working very closely with that arm of the business, White informed Food Manufacture, as it looks at how automation and data can increase line efficiencies.
When asked what success would look like in the next three years, White smiled and said if we’d had this interview six months ago, he would have replied: “To become the largest independent brewer in the UK”.
“The reality is that we are there now,” he grinned. “We are the largest independent brewery in the UK. And we expect to reach capacity at the brewery by next year.”
As for the new focus, it’ll be about making sure the brewery delivers what it set out to do – becoming a total beverage company and expanding its portfolio “in the right areas in the right way.”