Dragon flying the flag for textile industry

And as she is given the grand tour of Ilkley Brewery on a crisp November evening in Yorkshire, her passion for some of the UK’s more traditional industries really shows through.

“Anyone who thinks textiles has had it... well I’m sorry, but it’s thriving,” remarks Ms Meaden, the entrepreneur and investor, well-known for her appearances on TV’s Dragons’ Den.

Often the products in these industries have not become irrelevant, she says, but the way businesses are speaking about them has.

“If you’re still saying the same things about your product as you were 10 years ago then you are definitely speaking in an irrelevant fashion, because the consumer has moved, we’re feeling different, we’re concerned about cash at the moment, we are worried about our jobs, we are worried about the economy and there’s no point me giving them frivolous reasons to buy. You need to give them very good reasons to buy.”

Ms Meaden was speaking to the Yorkshire Post during a visit to Ilkley Brewery.

She is mentoring the business as part of the prize it was awarded after it was crowned the national winner of the Yorkshire Post-backed Local Business Accelerators campaign.

As the co-owner of the last surviving textile mill in the South-West of England, Fox Brothers & Co, which dates back to 1772, Ms Meaden is talking from experience.

“When I bought it, it was in trouble and it had become irrelevant. It makes beautiful cloth. But it had become irrelevant because it wasn’t telling its story in the right way.

“So I really haven’t done anything other than, it’s the same people making the cloth, it’s the same beautiful cloth it’s always been producing, but we are telling people why they should be buying it.”

The reason why consumers will buy bottled beer from the shops is because “it’s really good value and you can still have the same wonderful beer and drink it in your own home”, she continues.

“You can still buy my cloth – it’s the most beautiful cloth, and although it might be expensive to buy it will last for a long time.”

Ms Meaden is full of praise for Ilkley Brewery. It brought brewing back to the spa town of Ilkley after a gap of nearly 100 years when Chris Ives and Stewart Ross set up the business in 2009 after careers in the commercial property industry.

With little experience of brewing and an initial investment of £50,000 in an eight-barrel brew plant, which brewed about 1,000 pints a week, the pair began their venture.

In its first year of trading the business turned over £43,000. Today, Ilkley Brewery employs 11 people and turnover is expected to be around £1m for 2012, up from £689,000 the previous year.

And it supplies the likes of Asda, Booths, Morrisons and most recently Harvey Nichols, notably at its iconic OXO Tower in Lon- don.

The brewery has scooped a host of awards for its innovative, flavour-filled beers, which include its Mary Jane variety.

“They’ve done a lot of the hard work, most of the hard work, so they are obviously brewing a good product, and that’s amazing, because they didn’t come from this background.

“I think they’ve come with a very fresh approach, they are brewing a good product, and people want to buy it,” said Ms Meaden.

But, what next for the brew- ery?

“All they need to do now is get there brand message out to a much, much wider audience.

“At the moment I would suspect that if we put pins into a map as to who they are supplying, they would be very, very clustered around this area, with a few customers dotted throughout the nation, and there needs to be more dots outside this area and internationally,” added Ms Meaden.

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