Silent Pool opened its doors once again to welcome our Lower Sixth Business Studies students into the world of Gin at their distillery located in the Surrey Hills. The home of luxury English gin handcrafted with 24 botanicals in the Surrey Hills, its brand has gone from strength to strength since first being founded in 2014 by Ian McCulloch and James Shelbourne. They chose its location based on history, a good story and plenty of provenance – restoring dilapidated farm buildings to house the production site.
Our students were superbly looked after by Christian Streatfield (Hospitality Manager) whose knowledge and passion for the brand and its story were infectious. Whilst Sophie Best (Operations Director) answered many of our questions around finance and operations. Having been with Silent Pool since it was founded and being described as the ‘brains of the operation’ her knowledge of how the business has evolved and its link with the Business Studies course was invaluable.
Students were given a tour of the premises by Christian and a detailed and hugely interesting explanation of how the brand was founded, the story behind the bottle you buy, where products are sourced, the production and bottling process as well as a wealth of information regarding their response to external factors such as corporate social responsibility, COVID and BREXIT. Students were able to bring theory to life focusing on production methods, quality management, stock control, the marketing mix, branding, staff management including motivation and relationships with suppliers. We are hugely grateful to Christian, Sophie and the Silent Pool team for allowing us to come and look around their business whilst hard at work. It’s hard not to be inspired by what the Silent Pool team are doing and we feel incredibly lucky to have such a successful business down the road!
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