BEER HAWK SWOOPS
Craft beer company founders are recognised for entrepreneurial flair
MARK ROBERTS and Chris France will be flipping the lids off a couple of ales after being jointly named Small Business Entrepreneur of the Year at the NatWest Great British Entrepreneur Awards in Manchester.
The founders of Beer Hawk – the Wetherby-based online craft and speciality beer retailer – beat stiff competition from over 1,000 businesses across the UK.
Now in its fifth year, the NatWest Great British Entrepreneur Awards recognise the hard work and inspiring stories of British entrepreneurs.
Previous winners include James Watt of BrewDog and Julie Deane of The Cambridge Satchel Company.
Mark Roberts, said the award came as a “huge honour” and added: “We’ve been able to build such an amazing team of people, who have contributed so much to the growth of Beer Hawk.
“One of the best things about the NatWest Great British Entrepreneur Awards is that all of the judges are entrepreneurs themselves so to be recognised by some of the UK’s most successful entrepreneurs is a somewhat surreal but incredible feeling.”
Roberts and France launched Beer Hawk – which delivers craft and speciality beers from around the world to customers’ front doors – in 2012 after leaving senior positions at Laithwaite’s Wine and Proctor & Gamble respectively and remortgaging their homes to ride the craft beer wave.
Within five years, Beer Hawk has gone from a small start-up with only 250 products and three members of staff to the UK’s largest consumer beer delivery platform, with over 1,000 products and 60 employees.
Founder of the NatWest Great British Entrepreneur Awards, Francesca James, said: “Not only have we had more entries this year than ever before, but the standard of entries has been amazing.”
We’ve been able to build such an amazing team of people. Mark Roberts, co-founder of Beer Hawk