A ONE-TIME humble Hexham company, now turning over £24m of trade in 68 countries, pulls no punches in its latest five-year business plan.

Into the second year of that plan, Fentimans – the Cinderella of soft drinks manufacturers – aims to almost triple turnover to £70m a year by the end of 2020.

That will be aided, said proprietor Eldon Robson, by driving up exports from its current 34 per cent of output to 56 per cent.

While Europe is currently the prime thrust, North America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and a sprinkling of South American customers are in the mix too.

“We have been going for 23 years now,” said Eldon. “And despite being a little company, we have a big punch – we are the premium company in Britain for soft drinks – and we’re expanding by the year.

“The difficult thing is finding a reliable distributor in each country. In the UK, we deal with 250 different distributors, but 10,000 miles away, you need to find one that’s reliable and can do the whole lot in that country.”

It is part of the legend that in the early 1990s, Eldon restarted a family business that had run out of steam a quarter-of-a-century earlier.

He was clutching his great-grandfather Thomas Fentiman’s original recipe for the botanic brew that sold like hotcakes during the 1950s and 60s.

Today, the company has 30 or so staff in Hexham and another 25-strong sales team spread around the country.

Between them, they develop and sell an ever-expanding range of soft drinks marketed on the basis of their 100 per cent natural ingredients.

The idea for one of the company’s biggest sellers, Rose Lemonade, was all Eldon’s.

“I was sitting in an Indian restaurant and they had little dishes of crushed salt and pepper and another one with rose petals in. I picked them up and smelled them and thought ‘I can do something with that’.”

But the newest product idea came from long-serving member of staff John Carslake. “He came and said ‘there are syrups out there, such as Monin, but ...’

“We did the appropriate research and have brought out a liquid that’s natural, more concentrated and gives a bigger kick to cocktails and coffee.”

So, welcome to the House of Broughton Finest Syrup range, soon to be joined by another Fentiman’s innovation – cans that will allow its drinks to go places its usual bottles can’t.

“Airlines are quite a big opportunity for us,” said Eldon. “We hope to be on at least one of them by the end of the year.”

Eldon’s primary focus during the five years of this business plan is growing the company itself.

A new £250,000 IT system is enabling Fentimans to maximise its marketing on social media, the key driver in finding new customers and distributors, and a relatively new management team is pushing the company up a league.

“As the company has grown, we’ve started to attract better people into the key roles,” he said, “a better standard of people with more experience in the bigger corporate backgrounds.

“Although I’m pleased to say the majority of people have been here years, certainly at the top end, I’ve had to adapt and grow the management team.”