The world of premium spirits is a vast, hissing and simmering cauldron of flavour. Every drink aims to push the boundaries on the senses, to breach the comforting brackets of familiarity – transforming that sip of gin into synaesthesia, where taste, smell and the feel of liquid on the tongue are each carefully crafted components of an overall EXPERIENCE. Hundreds of Pop-up drink fairs and conventions are erected across the country – thousands across the globe – to compare, contrast and blend new experiences from around the world. The company I would work with for three months straight after I left University was a drinks company, but their product was non-alcoholic. It was a mixer – something to blend these weird and wonderful flavours with. The twist: they were all-natural mixers, with an ethos hell-bent on exposing and toppling a tonic market saturated with artificially sweetened, flavoured and branded products.

My internship began with a tip-off from WEXO’s Robin who notified me that a new, exciting opportunity had appeared and that it may be of interest to me. After having a quick look over the internship details, I decided that this was exactly the something that I had been looking for –the chance to try something new.,to throw myself into an area that I was interested in, but knew little about and to dabble in something that would seriously benefit my critically experience-malnourished CV…

After an interview and a weekend excursion to the unfamiliar realm of London, I was called by Tom – Fever-Tree’s Sales Manager – who alerted me that I had been accepted and my internship would begin immediately. I was to be working with him in what the drinks industry refers to as the ‘On-Trade’, meaning individual or collective premises that worked outside of main grocery channels, such as bars, pubs, clubs and hotels. I would be visiting these venues alone, garnering specific information on each ‘account’, gathering feedback and finding out the best ways in which the product could grow in conjunction with the account’s consumer-base, geographical region and, if applicable, its group.

An ‘account’, I soon learned, very rarely existed as an individually licensed, autonomous entity. A pub would tend to belong to a ‘group’ or even a large, multinational brewer. My three months, Tom announced, would predominantly consist of travelling to and visiting a colossal amount of groups and businesses, while he constantly assessed me. The path to Sales-Mecca would, I soon learned, consist of episodic, enriching periods of guidance and confidence-nurturing from my mentor, but more often than not would involve hurling me repeatedly into volatile situations and watching how I dealt with it, possibly with a very small morsel of sadistic satisfaction.

Although horrifically nerve-wracking during the first few weeks this method allowed me to develop a certain skill-set desperately necessary in a Sales role: thinking on your toes and making the most of the resources available to you. It was initially a terrifying experience; I’d be walking into a pub or restaurant, asking for the bar manager above the hubbub (this would instantly turn a few heads in my direction – the man feeding his dog cold chips at the table closest would look up and grimace at me as I stood there shivering in my salesperson shirt and chinos), waiting a good five minutes whilst sweat began to ooze out of my hands and armpits until they came over and grasped my clammy palm, ready hear my delivery. “Hello!”, I would say, “I’m Will from Fever-Tree”. That was my planned opening, the rest would hopefully follow.

Yet grudgingly I began to revel in this method of learning and within two weeks I was allowed to set out alone “in the field” with a suitcase full of products, botanicals and a Salesman swagger. Within three weeks I was comfortably “cold-calling” – the method of entering an alien premises, attempting with your Fever-Tree chat and a favourable spread of the product in an ancient cocktail magazine to strum the apathetic strings of the Manager’s heart until Tonic-induced ecstasy is splayed upon his business plan. All this while trying to retain that rehearsed, comforting and assuring, “I’m-totally-in-charge-look-into-my-dark-confident-pupils”, rock-steady, if a tad unnerving, Sales-stare. Tom, my boss, did it on cue. He’d walk proudly into premises and come out the same upbeat, down to earth fellow as if all he had received inside was a gut-warming pat on the back. Inside the pub or restaurant his demeanour would quickly change and a clearly researched and idealistic figure emerged, at once comforting the client and finding ways to push buttons and tap into an interest he or she didn’t realise they had in a product they’d never heard about. It took me a few months of repeatedly cold-calling venues to really get the gist of it.

Sales is all about communication. Once you have this fundamental nailed down, skills can be embedded and your persona can be polished. What I took away from Fever-Tree was a confidence I know I wouldn’t have developed unless I had been thrown headfirst into the deep-end, and I desperately urge anyone who hasn’t to do so immediately. In the end I chose not to continue on at my internship because it was ultimately an area of expertise that wasn’t me. That said, it has genuinely been one of the most fulfilling, eye-opening and fun experiences that I have ever had. I would recommend the company to anyone who genuinely has a passion for the drinks industry and communicating to the ocan of people within it. The people were immense, and I’d like to thank everyone at Fever-Tree for the chance to work at one of the most professional and inspiring workplaces in the UK. In particular I’d like to thank Tom Armstrong who was a genuine mentor to me, who I looked up to a great deal and who made the experience just that bit more special. I also learned a lot I’m sure!

William Martin

After graduating from Durham, I was set on finding a small, fast-paced company to work for, and one which would provide me with some valuable hands-on business experience. WEXO provided the perfect platform from which to search for appropriate vacancies and, after registering my details on the website and subsequently organising an interview with the WEXO boss, I was soon put in contact with Alibi Drink who were advertising an eight week sales internship.

Alibi Drink, a small ‘PRETOX’ functional health drinks company based in Notting Hill, was looking to take on four interns in order to help grow the brand’s presence in convenience stores, cafes, and delis in London. Each intern was delegated a quarter of London and, right from day one, was responsible for opening, merchandising and managing as many accounts in the capital as possible. The internship provided invaluable field sales experience and a quantifiable business development opportunity. It also provided one of the interns, potentially, with a full-time position on the back of the internship, which I was fortunate enough to secure at the beginning of October.

Alibi is a hugely exciting company to work for and one which is growing rapidly within the FMCG industry. The team behind it are all young, fun, and determined to make the Alibi brand succeed internationally. I was also lucky enough to be invited on the company weekend away in Paris just before I started which was simply incredible yet somewhat mired my productivity on the first Monday morning back in the office! Being such a small business I have been given a lot of responsibility already. My job now entails opening and managing accounts with food-on-the-go outlets and health stores across the UK whilst also managing the sales interns who are in control of all convenience store and cafe/deli accounts in London.

I am so fortunate to have been pushed in Alibi’s direction by WEXO and cannot think of a better place to learn how small businesses operate and the hurdles they face when expanding.

Archie Vey

By Tom Clark

I never know what to expect of our evenings. Last night’s talks with WEXO about “Recipes for Success” were no exception: four passionate professionals from different corners of the food world gathered in a Palladian church by Centre Point, on the first true autumn evening of the year.

Marco Pierre White, in particular, subverted our expectations. It began when we met him for lunch at his new pub, The Hansom Cab. He held up his hand to illustrate opportunism. ‘See this hand’ he had said, ‘You see it one way, but there are many ways to see it. You see a palm, I see four knuckles. You need awareness of mind to recognise your luck.’

Marco knows how to tell a story. He leant in close to the microphone and spoke as if a mariner over a table in a pub, with deliberate, authoritative pauses; he took us from his dream of achieving three Michelin stars and five red knives and forks to the realisation of that dream, presenting his path as the upshot of many good twists of fate. He told of how, by pure chance, he had come across Le Gavroche as he wandered through London after missing his bus. The next day, he walked in and asked for an interview. Albert Roux took him on.

The moral? Recognise your luck, then strive for perfection and be gutsy as hell.

Niamh Shield’s Eat Like a Girl blog, with its vivid photography and affable tone, gives such a strong impression of her character that I felt I had met her before. She was every bit as affable in the flesh, totally at ease with the ad-hoc format and chatting willingly in her gentle Irish lilt.

She began her blog after a foul day at work, and soon realised it was a natural progression: ‘I’d always loved cooking food for friends, and sharing my recipes with them (too forcefully sometimes!), so with my blog, I just carried on doing that, except now I was sharing with an online community.’ The spirit of the blog is to make recipes simple and accessible.

So why don’t more people cook at home, I asked. It is partly a matter of education: ‘Children aren’t taught to cook in school any more’ she complained. ‘They’re taught English and Maths and History, but not how to prepare food.’

We need to re-acquaint ourselves with the joy of preparation, she argues. I suggest Eat Like a Girl as a first port of call.

Daren Spence, the co-founder of We Are Tea, ‘really, really, really LOVES tea’. He hardly had to say it, such was his dynamic delivery. Would-be entrepreneurs are often advised to begin with a problem, and Spence had delineated his very clearly:

‘Tea had been forgotten. There was an influx – well, I mean an invasion – of the American-style coffee shop. My colleagues were returning to the office with more and more vulgar coffee-based drinks, with sprinkles on top and cream on the top – it was like watching someone going to the cinema with a pop-corn bucket. And all I could get was a tepid cup of crumby tea in a polystyrene cup. I felt left out. I wanted to be part of their gang […] And I was frustrated that the tea industry was just sitting there, resting on its 350-year-old laurels, not doing anything about it.’

Well, Spence isn’t sitting around, and We Are Tea are fighting the tea battle, winning Great Taste Awards (‘The Oscars of fine food’) and supplying such humble outfits as Harrods and Harvey Nichols.

Simon Prockter has just launched one of the most innovative things in food. He is co-founder of Housebites, ‘gourmet take-away, delivered to your door, cooked by a local, top chef.’ (an alternative to pizzas which taste like the boxes they came in). So, which niggling frustrations engendered this great idea?

‘When you think of take-away, do you think of it as a great experience? Do you know who is cooking your meal? [...] Wouldn’t it be great if you could see your chef on the high street, and say “Hey, that’s my chef, you cooked me a great meal the other day!” And that really doesn’t happen.’ Well, for what it’s worth a big thank you to the Housebites chef Andy Oliver (Masterchef finalist), who prepared those delicious nibbles for the interval.

Simon brought speed-dating into Europe with his company SpeedDater; fingers-crossed the matchmaking will continue in the world of food.

For the full story and more inspiring events visit: www.tomaxtalks.com

From my first day at Sipsmith I could never have imagined that I would be involved in so many different roles and responsibilities in such a relatively short period of time. From consumer samplings in Selfridges, to travelling the length and breadth of the country promoting the brand and training staff, to watching the Kooks at a festival in Suffolk, there was never a dull moment in the three months I spent at Sipsmith.
Working for a small company could not have been more beneficial to me as an intern as it allowed to gain a huge amount of experience in a variety of different areas, and exposed me to the excitements of being part of a relatively new, independent venture. There really were far too many roles within Sipsmith to cover in this space, but here are just a few of the more important and enjoyable ones:

• Consumer samplings in stores across London to increase sales and increase consumer awareness of Sipsmith
• Visiting on-trade accounts at hotels, pubs and cocktail bars, and new venues to try and increase on-trade sales
• Researching foreign drinks markets to help Sipsmith make more informed decisions when exporting its products
• Delivering stock to accounts in London
• Visiting industry trade shows and festivals across the country

The energy and passion of the Sipsmith founders is infectious and unavoidable, and their genuine love for producing the finest hand-crafted spirits rubs off, not just on the other members of the team, but also on anyone who visits the distillery or is a guest on one of the legendary tours. Throughout my time at Sipsmith I really felt as though I was part of something, that the work I did was of some importance and that I was not there just to make the tea! It was hard work but incredibly rewarding, and I certainly have a lot to show for the three months I worked at the first copper distillery in London for almost 200 years.

This was a paid role and throughout this process WEXO were incredibly helpful, both at finding internship opportunities that suited my needs and interests, and also supporting me during the period I was actually working. I would certainly recommend them to anyone looking to find employment opportunities.

Ed Gillespie

Having worked in various catering jobs from chalet cook to restaurant chef in the four years since I left university I knew two things – I didn’t want to work in a kitchen, but I did want to work in the food industry somehow. So a friend of mine who had got an internship suggested signing up to WEXO.

Within a week I had two interview offers and was offered an internship with ‘housebites’ a very small Internet start-up. Housebites is a new way of ordering high quality takeaway food from chefs in your local area. At the moment we haven’t even launched yet but watch this space.

As the company is so young and small, I am involved in many different aspects of the operation but my main role is as the ‘community manager’ – which at the moment consists of recruiting our chefs for when we get up and running. Having absolutely no business experience or knowledge, my time at Housebites has been invaluable, especially as the head of the company is a highly experienced internet entrepreneur and has been very kind and patient in including me in many aspects of starting an internet company. I especially enjoy the variety of working in such a small team and no two days are ever the same. It’s also great to have met so many talented and passionate chefs and just nattering about food all day – right up my street!

I feel lucky to have been here at the start of what I hope will soon become a household name. My internship comes to an end at the end of July, and I really hope that Housebites will ask me to stay on as the company launches and begins to grow. I really can’t thank WEXO enough for the fantastic service that they are providing for all of the people like me who don’t really know exactly what it is that they want to do or who can’t find a ‘real’ job in this tough market. I wish them all the best in the future.

Tom Gurney