Corona (soft drink)
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| Public | |
| Industry | Beverage |
| Founded | 1880s |
| Founder | William Evans, William Thomas |
| Headquarters | Porth, Rhondda, UK, Wales |
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Area served
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Great Britain |
| Products | Corona bottled carbonated drinks |
Corona was a brand of carbonated beverage available in the United Kingdom produced by Thomas & Evans Ltd. The firm was created by grocers William Thomas and William Evans when they saw a market for soft drinks caused by the growing influence of the temperance movement in South Wales. The company's first factory was based in Porth, Rhondda, eventually expanding to 87 depots and factories throughout Britain. Corona was sold to The Beecham Group in the 1950s and subsequently to Britvic Soft Drinks, but stopped trading as a brand in the late 1990s.
William Thomas was born in 1851 in Mathry in Pembrokeshire in the west of Wales. He came from a family of farmers, and at the age of fourteen he left home to take up an apprenticeship as a butcher in Newport. In 1874 he married Rowena Rowlands and they moved to the village of Aberbeeg where he set up a butcher's shop, living in the premises above. The business was a success and soon a warehouse was added and the shop enlarged.
In 1882 William Evans (born 1864), who himself came from Pembrokeshire, came to work at the shop and lived with the family for three years. The two men became business partners setting up a chain of grocery stores and a few years later they branched into the soft drinks market. Initially, Evans had not considered producing non-alcoholic beverages, but a chance meeting with an American business man and the growing temperance movement in the south Wales valleys led him to the production of carbonated drinks. Although partners, Thomas provided the money to set up the business and the money he loaned to Evans was set an interest rate of 50%.
Their first major plant was in Porth in the Rhondda Valleys, the heartland of the industrial coalfield in south Wales. Named the Welsh Hills Mineral Water Factory, the building opened during the 1890s and boasted state-of-the-art bottling machinery and a process to safely clean the glass bottles, allowing for the bottles to be reused after being returned by the customer for a small deposit. The bottles originally used Hiram Codd's globe-stopper with a wire hinged top to keep in the pressure of the carbonated drinks. Initially the firm produced mineral water and ginger beer, under the brand Thomas & Evans' Welsh Hills soft drinks, in the hope they could gain a foothold in public houses as a non-alcoholic alternative. This was an unsuccessful venture, and Evans was forced to find an alternative market for his drinks. Evans struck upon the idea of selling door-to-door using horse and wagon, and soon his venture became a success, with the company branching into other more child-friendly flavours, such as orangeade, dandelion and burdock, raspberryade and lemonade. By the turn of the century the company had over 200 salesman delivering Corona drinks by horse-drawn delivery wagon across Wales, and two massive steam-driven vehicles.
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Wikipedia