Oxford's Tap Social ready to 'turbocharge' growth after attracting investors

BBC News

5 hours ago

A social enterprise on a mission to reduce reoffending through prison-leaver employment has attracted a large number of investors.The Tap Social Movement has been distributing its "criminally good beer" from its craft brewery since 2016, and now has five venues across Oxfordshire, including Proof Social Bakehouse in Kennington.It opened to external funding for the first time but has already surpassed its initial target of £500,000 and has set a new goal of £1m.One of the founders, Tess Taylor, said it was now looking to "turbocharge" its growth, with plans for a new venue in South Oxfordshire and hopes to expand nationally.
Ms Taylor co-founded the company with her sister Amy Taylor and Paul Humpherson, all of whom had come from careers in the criminal justice system. With annual revenues exceeding £2.5m, their business has delivered 105,000 hours of paid employment to prisoners and ex-offenders."One person joined us after a very long prison sentence, hadn't really had any work experience," Ms Taylor said."[He] worked his way through the bakery, moved to front of house, found that he had a real knack for customer service and is now in a management role in our café."It's really exciting to see things like that and we're just really proud of everybody who comes through."She said it was now at a point where it was looking to "really turbocharge our growth"."It's come at a time that we think we could use some external investment and we would love to get more people involved as well," she added."We were hoping to raise around £500,000 and we have we've passed that, so we're into extra funding at the moment."It's just been really nice to see so many people want to be part of what we're doing and get involved and become a shareholder as well."
Ms Taylor said Oxford "was the best place that we could have set up" because of its "amazing supportive community"."We're always going to be very grateful for that support that we've had and we love being based in Oxford and Oxfordshire. "We would love to take the products further field, so we're looking at a national retail launch which is coming in September," she said, adding that was "just another way to really raise awareness" about its social mission.Investor David Hipkiss, who is founder of gene therapy company AlveoGene, said the most impressive feature of the team was its "resilience and ability to adapt to new challenges and opportunities"."Being able to be part of something that truly turns lives around is very rewarding," he added.
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