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As the family jeweller marks its 170th anniversary, chairman Andrew Hinds reflects on supply chains, soaring gold prices, AI and why the future of the high street still depends on human relationships.<\/em><\/p>\n When George Henry Hinds opened his first jewellery shop on Harrow Road in Paddington in 1856, Britain was still in the Victorian era. The Suez Canal did not exist. The telephone had not been invented. The notion of an online retailer would have sounded like science fiction.<\/p>\n Yet 170 years later, F.Hinds remains one of Britain\u2019s last large independent family-owned jewellers, operating 132 F.Hinds and Chapelle stores across the UK and still controlled by the founding family. In the year ending March 2025, the retailer reported sales rising 4% to \u00a386.3m and operating profit increasing 7% to \u00a38.1m.<\/p>\n As the business celebrates its anniversary with a new \u201cGiving Confidence\u201d brand campaign, chairman Andrew Hinds argues that longevity is about far more than heritage.<\/p>\n \u201cCustomers value that history,\u201d he says. \u201cWhen you\u2019ve got your name above the door, you\u2019re putting your name to everything you do. There aren\u2019t anonymous, faceless people behind the business.\u201d<\/p>\n That message sits at the heart of the high-street jeweller\u2018s anniversary campaign, which uses customer reactions such as \u201cIt\u2019s perfect\u201d, \u201cI\u2019ll wear it forever\u201d and \u201cYou know me so well\u201d alongside the tagline \u201c170 years of giving confidence\u201d. The campaign is designed to remind shoppers that the company\u2019s history is not simply a legacy, but something they still benefit from today.<\/p>\n For Hinds, survival has largely come down to patience. \u201cWe\u2019re not doing things for the next quarterly results,\u201d he says. \u201cWe tend to be looking in generations as our timescale. We don\u2019t jump in with both feet into something new unless we can see there\u2019s no cost for doing that.\u201d<\/p>\n The jewellery industry that F.Hinds operates in today would be almost unrecognisable to previous generations of the family.<\/p>\n For much of its history, the company manufactured many of the pieces it sold. That changed in the 1960s when Andrew Hinds\u2019 father decided the business needed to specialise.<\/p>\n \u201cWe stopped trying to do the whole process,\u201d he says. \u201cOtherwise we\u2019d have been tied into our own supply.\u201d<\/p>\n That decision proved prescient. While jewellery supply chains were once largely domestic, supplemented by some European sourcing, today\u2019s industry is now profoundly global.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I started seeing things in the late Eighties, the supply chain was largely UK-based with a certain amount of Europe,\u201d he recalls. \u201cThat\u2019s completely flipped.\u201d<\/p>\n He explains that local production still has strengths, particularly in categories such as wedding rings where speed, customisation and service matter. But large-scale manufacturing now comes from across the world.<\/p>\n The pace of product development has also accelerated dramatically, with technology and changing consumer tastes meaning jewellery ranges evolve far more quickly than they once did.<\/p>\n \u201cThe speed of change in designs is completely different,\u201d says Hinds. \u201cCelebrity-driven trends and wider fashion influences have become much more important.\u201d<\/p>\n But that evolution is also taking place against a backdrop of unprecedented pressure in precious metals markets.<\/p>\n The UK jewellery market was worth an estimated $5.76bn (\u00a34.2bn) in 2024 and remains heavily dependent on gold, which accounted for almost half of all jewellery sales by material.<\/p>\n Among other types of jewellery, rings remain the largest category, representing more than a third of market revenue. Offline retail also continues to dominate, accounting for more than 86 per cent of sales. Consumer demand is increasingly shaped by ethical sourcing, craftsmanship and long-term value.<\/p>\n For jewellers, however, rising commodity prices have become one of the defining commercial challenges in the sector in recent years. The price of gold has surged to record highs, while silver has experienced sharp bouts of volatility, forcing retailers and manufacturers alike to rethink product ranges and sourcing strategies.<\/p>\n \u201cWe had probably the best part of a decade where gold was going up maybe 10 per cent a year,\u201d says Hinds. \u201cYou could live with that. You could work with it.\u201d<\/p>\n The past three years have been different. \u201cIf somebody wants a wedding ring, they\u2019ll probably still buy it. But if they\u2019re buying a gift, they\u2019ve usually got a fixed budget. If something was \u00a3100 a few years ago and it\u2019s now \u00a3500, they\u2019re not going to buy the \u00a3500 item.\u201d<\/p>\n The response has not been to sacrifice quality. \u201cWe\u2019d rather use different materials than make the gold piece lighter and lighter,\u201d he says. \u201cYou end up selling something you\u2019re not happy with.\u201d<\/p>\n Across the industry, volatile metals markets are already reshaping product strategies. Earlier this year, Pandora announced plans to reduce its reliance on sterling silver and introduce more platinum-plated products, arguing that volatility in silver prices had become increasingly difficult to manage.<\/p>\n Reuters reported that the world\u2019s largest jewellery brand intends to convert a significant proportion of its silver range to platinum-plated products over the coming years.<\/p>\n Hinds sees similar shifts taking place across the market, although not necessarily at the expense of traditional precious metals. Titanium, mixed-metal collections and platinum have all become more important.<\/p>\n \u201cPlatinum used to be at a huge premium to gold,\u201d he says. \u201cNow it\u2019s much more in the same ballpark.\u201d<\/p>\n F.Hinds has increasingly promoted platinum over 18-carat white gold, partly because platinum avoids some of the maintenance requirements associated with white gold.<\/p>\n At the same time, laboratory-grown diamonds have transformed another corner of the market. \u201cThey\u2019ve been around for decades,\u201d says Hinds. \u201cBut they were so complicated to make that they actually cost more than natural diamonds.\u201d<\/p>\n Advances in production have changed that equation entirely. \u201cThey\u2019ve got cheaper and cheaper.\u201d<\/p>\n Rather than replacing natural diamonds, however, Hinds believes they have created a new category of demand, particularly in fashion jewellery where larger stones become affordable to a wider audience.<\/p>\n Yet perhaps the most contentious debate in modern jewellery focuses on ethics and provenance.<\/p>\n Consumers increasingly want reassurance about where products originate and how they have been sourced, supported by upcoming government environmental and sustainability regulations, such as digital product passports. Hinds supports greater transparency but warns against simplistic narratives.<\/p>\n \u201cFull-blown transparency is probably impossible in any sector,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n He argues that jewellery is ahead of many industries because questions around sourcing emerged decades ago. However, he is sceptical of approaches that focus solely on geographic origin.<\/p>\n Using Botswana as an example, Hinds notes that diamond revenues have helped fund education and healthcare systems that transformed living standards.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you\u2019re telling someone who\u2019s out of work because a diamond mine has closed that this is somehow more ethical, I\u2019m not sure that\u2019s right,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n He also raises similar questions about laboratory-grown diamonds, which are often presented as the more sustainable alternative.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re using huge amounts of electricity,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s a really complicated area.\u201d<\/p>\n Compared with sectors such as consumer electronics, where tracing the origins of rare earth minerals remains difficult, Hinds believes jewellery has made considerable progress.<\/p>\n Like most retailers, F.Hinds is exploring artificial intelligence, although its use remains relatively limited.<\/p>\n The technology is helping with online merchandising, imagery and product presentation. Tasks that once required extensive photography can increasingly be completed digitally.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s speeding up things like colour finishes,\u201d says Hinds. \u201cYou don\u2019t have to reshoot everything.\u201d<\/p>\n Warehousing is a different story. Because jewellery products are small and often require manual handling, the economics of large-scale warehouse automation are less compelling.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not had a major direct impact on the business yet.\u201d What AI cannot do, he argues, is replicate the experience that customers seek when buying emotionally significant products.<\/p>\n When asked what the industry might look like at F.Hinds\u2019 200th anniversary in 2056, Hinds declines to make bold predictions.<\/p>\n After all, the company launched its first website in 1997, before most retailers understood how transformative e-commerce would become.<\/p>\n Instead, he focuses on what has remained constant. \u201cPeople buy things from people,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n AI may be able to process data and generate recommendations, but jewellery purchases often emerge from conversations rather than algorithms.<\/p>\n \u201cIt can churn out what it thinks is the one-size-fits-all answer,\u201d he says. \u201cBut that\u2019s not necessarily the one-size that fits you.\u201d<\/p>\n That belief extends to the future of Britain\u2019s high streets. For example, Hinds says F.Hinds continues to relocate stores where necessary as town centres evolve. Some locations are no longer viable. Others are being reshaped.<\/p>\n But Hinds rejects suggestions that physical retail is in terminal decline. \u201cI\u2019m yet to see a successful town centre model that doesn\u2019t include retail.\u201d<\/p>\n The challenge, he says, is not that Britain has too few shoppers. It is that many towns simply have too many retail units.<\/p>\n \u201cYou walk around some towns and think they\u2019ve got loads of empty shops,\u201d he says. \u201cActually they\u2019ve got plenty of shops. They\u2019ve just got too many shop units.\u201d<\/p>\n For a company that has survived recessions, wars, technological revolutions and countless shifts in consumer behaviour, the lesson is a familiar one: adapt where necessary, but never lose sight of what matters.<\/p>\n As F.Hinds enters its 171st year, Hinds remains convinced that the fundamentals have not changed.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019ve got to be there for customers in the way they want to shop with you,\u201d he says. \u201cThat game hasn\u2019t really changed.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.retailgazette.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/AFH_Corridor_1-300x168.jpg\")
From workshop to global supply chain<\/h3>\n
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Platinum, laboratory diamonds and the ethics debate<\/h3>\n
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Why AI won\u2019t replace the jeweller<\/h3>\n
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