F&D Heroes Issue 1

Food & Drink Hero:
Made For Drink
For someone who started out at Walkers as a graduate selling crisps off the
back of a van, it’s probably not that surprising to discover that years down
the line Dan Featherstone found himself setting up a gastronomic snacking
enterprise in leafy Berkshire.
In truth, Made for Drink started off as an
indulgent personal project, with an inquisitive
me wondering out loud whether I could
design a product and brand to accommodate
what I perceived to be a gaping hole within
the UK’s fine snacking fixture.
What had started out as a light, albeit slightly
‘obsessive; hobby in the kitchen was rapidly
evolving into something altogether more
significant, as I started spending more and
more hours hunched over the family oven.
By now, I was wondering whether my idea
could ever find itself a home within the UK’s
reawakening independent pub scene, where
sublime craft beers, micro-distillery spirits
and clean-deck mixers were all jostling
to reconnect with a growing swathe of
increasingly experimental pub-goers.
Not wanting to die wondering, I pitched up
at what I (and many others) deem to be the
finest pub on this island, namely Heston’s
Crowne Pub in Bray. It was, and remains to
this day the best, most illuminating meeting
I’ve ever had; they loved the products,
believed there was a genuine opportunity
for them if I was able to scale up my
artisanal snacks and package them both
properly and legally.
Now I was fully up and running, immersing
myself in some of the finest snacking
traditions from around the globe whilst
acquainting myself with everything from
best-in-class ingredients to regional cooking
methods and cuisine in an audacious bid to
reclaim the local pub as the heartbeat of the
local community, championing food-centric
downtime with friends and family.
Central to my vision was to retain control of
our production so we weren’t ever beholden
to anyone else in terms of who we employed,
quality control, what ingredients we used or
how many man hours we devoted to product
innovation. This is why the team and I were
so proud to become Maidenhead
& Windsor’s first EU approved
manufacturing food business,
employing local staff and paying them
above the living wage, whilst training
them in a genuine craft that will hold
them in good stead moving forward.
Unfortunately, lockdown hasn’t been
kind in the sense that our on-trade
hotel and hospitality heartland is, for the
meantime at least, firmly under the cosh.
Fortunately, Made for Drink isn’t a
one-trick range of snacks which is why
we’ve enjoyed significant successes
within Sainsbury’s, Waitrose, Ocado,
Amazon, Daylesford, and Fortnum &
Mason; (to name but a few) prestige
listings that have enabled us to be more
economically resilient than most.
As a small, family-owned business we’re
especially proud of our ever-expanding
‘Doing The Right Thing’ initiative which
began with the launch of state-of-theart
compostable pouches and has gone
on to proactively raise animal welfare
standards. We’ve established our own
UK-based carbon fund, (sequestering
a sizeable plot of land in Devon and
working in tandem with the Forestry
Commission) to secure the business’s
long-term carbon neutral status.
The icing on the cake, however, is our
initiative involves forging a mutually
beneficial collaboration with English
Heritage, a five year global partnership
which allows us in 2021 to launch a
premium-tier range of English Heritage
snacks that will raise the profile of
this deserving national charity whilst
generating some invaluable funds for
their bottom line.
madefordrink.com
25