Harvester (restaurant)


Harvester Restaurants is a family "farmhouse style" restaurant chain with over 230 outlets in the United Kingdom.

Bass

On 21 July 1995, Bass bought the seventy eight restaurants of Harvester for £165 million. Whitbread had offered £150 million. Most Harvesters were in the South East, and Bass had plans to rebrand other restaurants elsewhere in England as Harvesters. When Bass divested its brewing division in 2000, the chain was looked after by the renamed company, Six Continents, until 2003.

Mitchells & Butlers

On 15 April 2003, Six Continents divested its hotel division, and the chain was taken over by the renamed company, Mitchells & Butlers plc, and had 127 outlets. By 2012, there were over two hundred hotel across the United Kingdom.

Return to television and radio advertising

For the first time in ten years, Harvester Restaurants spent nearly £20,000 on advertising on both television in the United Kingdom, and radio stations in July 2010. The advertising campaign was part of a general shift within Mitchells & Butlers plc, to focus on businesses that were food led. As part of the marketing campaign, they also run "free ice cream vouchers when you order main meal" campaigns periodically.

Environmental concerns

In November 2015, the chain was one of seven restaurants surveyed that failed to meet a basic level of sustainability in its seafood.
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