Business Weekly - Cambridge, UK

Cobra Beer

Cobra Beer in Bedfordshire, one of the outstanding business success stories in Britain, has entered both the Growth & Expansion and International Trade categories of the Awards. NEW ENTRY

Cobra Beer

Cobra Beer in Bedfordshire, one of the outstanding business success stories in Britain, has entered both the Growth & Expansion and International Trade categories of the Awards.

Karan Bilimoria founded Cobra Beer as a 27-year-old graduate in 1989, emerging from university £20,000 in debt courtesy of a millstone student loan.

Sixteen years on millstones have turned to milestones; Cobra Beer turns over £80m a year and the days of varsity paucity are a distant speck on the horizon.

Now further international expansion is inked large in the strategic Cobra blueprint through a mixture of organic growth and acquisition, and a flotation on London’s AIM market should be effected within the next 16 months.

Cobra has already diversified into carefully selected wines from around the world to accompany Indian food and Bilimoria says: “We will never stop innovating.”

Bilimoria, a Cambridge law graduate and qualified chartered accountant, identified a clear gulf in the eating out market when he launched Cobra Beer with the express aim of providing a lager that appealed to both ale drinkers and lager drinkers alike as they dined on spicy Indian cuisine.

His foresight has gone a considerable way to eliminating the lack of discernment inherent in the old ‘pint and a poppadom’ mentality, where a skinful at the pub would be routinely followed by a curry and anything liquid the relevant eaterie was prepared to serve up.

Bilimoria says: “The first shipment of Cobra was imported into the UK in 1990 at the start of a recession. We ploughed through other downturns, never wavering from our focus, and today we are stocked in more than 6,000 restaurants and most major supermarkets and off licence chains in the UK.

“We have also increased our presence in the mainstream retail outlets and Cobra beer is available in almost 6,000 pubs, style bars and clubs.”

Cobra was first brewed in Bangalore in 1990 and was imported to the UK for seven years. In 1997, Cobra started brewing under licence with the then 125-year-old family run Charles Wells brewery in Bedford. Now it is brewed in the UK, India and across Europe.

Cobra’s growth formula can scarcely be challenged – and the real momentum has been generated over the last two years. Once its headquarters was unquestionably UK but now it has major international HQ equivalents in Mumbai, India, Cape Town in South Africa and New York.

It once brewed at two centres; it now brews in five countries at centres of excellence in Bedford UK, Poland, Belgium, Holland and India.

Its product portfolio has positively rocketed from a handful to a whole spectrum, now embracing low calorie, non-alcoholic, bottled, canned and other varieties.