Hospitality dreams

Raise a glass!

Becoming a footballer, buying a sports car, owning an alcohol business – the dreams of many a man, but not many achieve any of them. Niche spoke with Harvey Uppal, managing director of VIP Bottles, to discover how he made one of those

dreams a reality WORDS BY TOM YOUNG

HARVEY UPPAL (RIGHT) WITH BHUPINDER GILL

Acorporate job isn’t for everybody. Up until 2014, Harvey Uppal was working for a large technology corporation, and wasn’t loving it. Meanwhile, his friend and future business partner, Bhupinder Gill, was similarly disenchanted with his job. The pair had met at college, gone to university together, and now trained together and went out for drinks at the weekends. Deciding that the corporate life wasn’t for them, they elected to start their own business.

“Deciding what we wanted to do was a challenge – I liked the idea of a milkshake shop or dessert restaurant, but then Heavenly Desserts opened on London Road. After discussing it, we realised we had two passions – working out and health supplements, and going for a drink.”

The latter won out. There was a gap in the UK alcohol market: US Imports. This involved taking some risks that ultimately paid off.

“We took a gamble and bought an entire pallet of Ciroc Pineapple vodka, which cost us £17-18k, that wasn’t small change for us. Again, no-one else had it in the UK at the time, but now it’s available in every corner shop – that was us! That’s become our business model, finding unique products, and importing them to the UK.”

Both Harvey and Bhupinder have computing degrees, so they built their business online, launching the website in October 2014.

“I was just a young, ambitious guy who wanted to do something different and prove people wrong.”

Harvey is proud of the fact that they’ve never taken money out of the business, instead, pumping it back in for continued growth. They expanded by starting their own trade line.

“We recently signed up Teremana Tequila – Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson’s brand – again; we were the first to import it, and it’s been a big part of keeping us above the rest.”

Surviving Covid by moving all business operations to their warehouse, Harvey and Bhupinder went full-time. Often working 20-hour days, the business kept growing, and their annual turnover hit £5m in 2020. Last year, it reached £7.5m.

VIP Bottles has now become The VIP Group, which includes their retail business, trade line, and VIP Bars & Cocktails, a mobile bar that has been hired for A-list events at prestigious locations such as the Savoy, The Landmark, and The Fairmont Windsor.

What’s next? “We’re looking at starting our own line – we’re both very passionate about tequila; we’ve both always enjoyed it and the market is booming, especially in the US where it’s soon to overtake vodka. So we like the idea of getting into that.”

You can find out more at thevipgroup.co.uk.

I WAS JUST A YOUNG, AMBITIOUS GUY WHO WANTED TO DO SOMETHING DIFFERENT AND PROVE PEOPLE WRONG