Speciality fruit and vegetable juice maker James White Drinks was set up because co-founder of the New Covent Garden Soup Company, Lawrence Mallinson, wanted to branch out on his own. He reports on progress to date I qualified as a chartered accountant and was finance director of a computer business when three of us launched the New Covent Garden Soup Company in 1988. We all came from outside the food industry, and our novel approach helped get the company off the ground, after which I wanted to do my own thing. In 1989 I bought the James White business, which had been producing cider from its base in Suffolk, and started from scratch as an apple juice producer, using my own funds. The idea was to produce high-quality pressed and filtered, preservative-free juices that are quite full-bodied, look similar to wine and are sold in glass bottles. I wanted to provide a mainstream product for adults who want a quality, non-alcoholic drink as an alternative to wine. We're at the fine foods, speciality end of the soft drink market, where we have grown slowly but profitably over 10 years. We have expanded into organic juices, which now represent 40% of our output and are growing steadily. We have combination fruit juice drinks such as apple & crushed ginger and raspberry and pear. And we also make Great Uncle Cornelius's Lemon Refresher traditional still lemonade and our Big Tom spicy tomato juice that makes wonderful Bloody Marys and for which we were granted a Royal Warrant in 2002. At the start of next year we are making a move into a more mainstream product with manicorganic - a high-quality, organic chilled drink in plastic bottles. It's our first non-ambient product. Chillers are where people go to look for something new and exciting, which means you are instantly able to generate a level of sale, and there is still a perception among customers that products in plastic are fresher than those in glass. Our main outlets have been delis, fine food shops, garden centres and catering operations, but with our Big Tom spicy tomato juice we wanted to convince retailers it offered something different, and this has worked. Waitrose and Sainsbury's are our main customers, but we are also in Tesco, Asda, Morrisons and Booths. All of that is branded, as we don't do own label, and we have built a small but thriving business on our brands without chasing the mass market - until now. We now employ 20 staff and our turnover has doubled in three or four years to £3m. I think we can get to £10m in a few years time.

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