A London food, drink and gift store on Piccadilly, founded in 1707, with a tea shop, restaurants, hampers and shops at St Pancras, Heathrow and Canary Wharf.
Fortnum & Mason is a luxury food and gift store with its main shop at 181 Piccadilly in London. It is best known for hampers, tea and specialty foods, and it has a tea shop and several restaurants, as well as homeware, beauty and fashion that have been added in recent years. It holds two Royal Warrants, from King Charles III and Queen Camilla, and received its first in 1910 from Queen Alexandra. The store is often counted as a department store because it sells more than food.
The business began in 1707, when William Fortnum, a footman in the royal household, joined his landlord Hugh Mason to open a small grocery shop at St James's Market. Fortnum earned a little extra by reselling the leftover candle wax from the palace. The store says it invented the Scotch egg in 1738, and in 1886 it became the first British shop to stock baked beans. We did not find a formal mission statement in the sources we read, so we have not made one up.
In the UK, the Piccadilly store is the heart of the business. Other UK shops are at the Royal Exchange, St Pancras station, Canary Wharf and Heathrow Airport, and in October 2025 Fortnum's opened at Bicester Village, its first UK shop outside London. The company also has shops abroad, in Hong Kong and Dubai, and stockists worldwide. The famous four-tonne clock above the entrance, added in 1964, shows models of Mr Fortnum and Mr Mason bowing to each other every hour.
As for people and culture, a 2016 reference gave the staff as 708, so the number is likely different today. The Piccadilly roof has had beehives since 2008, and the honey is sold in the store. The store has a tradition of storytelling, from the post box service it ran before the General Post Office started in 1839 to the royal link behind its name. These are the company's and press reports' own stories rather than workplace surveys.
A store like this employs food buyers and tea blenders, chefs and restaurant teams, hamper makers and packers, sales advisers, visual merchandisers, marketing and brand staff, e-commerce and delivery teams, and finance and property people. Because it runs from Piccadilly to airports and stations, retail and hospitality skills can be used in several settings. If you enjoy food, tea, service and heritage brands, Fortnum & Mason is a good example of how a very old business keeps changing.
Website: www.fortnumandmason.com
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