I frequently meet worried participants in the media industry, and thank my lucky stars I mostly make my living from food and drink. The stability of the sector – compared with the turmoil in newspapers, thanks to digital upheaval – is a great comfort.
Indeed certain industries, such as the brewing trade, appear to be coming full circle and reverting to a structure that prevailed at the start of industrial capitalism. For this, entrepreneurs must be grateful: it enables us to compete against the multinationals, and resist the relentless trend towards consolidation and oligopolies.
Beer was first made on a serious scale in the 16th century. Production became increasingly mechanised and among the first purpose-built industrial structures were London’s breweries. Major businesses grew up during the early industrial revolution and became among the largest commercial undertakings in the world; these included 18th-century giants such as Whitbread and Truman’s. The number of players grew to peak at 3,556 in 1915 in Britain. A similar trend was apparent in the US – a huge variety of operators in a fragmented sector.