Hardknott in Sainsbury’s

Last week was the launch of the in-store round of the Sainsbury’s Great British Beer Hunt. We have been successful in getting Infra Red to this stage. This involves us shipping 19,992¹ bottles to the central depot for onward distribution to over 400 stores by Sainsbury’s own logistics.

Infra Red is not a beer that we sell a lot of in draught formats. Much of our output of this beer is in bottle. Indeed, in stark contrast to draught sales, it is the case that it appears there is a sweet spot for bottle beers in the 5%-7% range based on the demand we see. 4% beers, at least for us, sell in lower volumes in bottle.

I believe there are several factors that might improve our chances of getting though to the final, but for certain strong sales will help. If you would like to see more Hardknott in future then buying our beer from this scheme will help.

It seems appropriate for me to comment on the issue of supermarkets and their approach to selling beer. I’m sure some of you will be thinking that we’re selling out. I’ve seen comments on twitter and elsewhere regarding the fact that the breweries are being screwed and that it’s just a loss leader exercise.

What I can say with complete confidence is that the price charged by the supermarket, at least in this instance, is at an appropriate mark-up. We knew the price we’d be paid for our product well in advance and could make the appropriate commercial decision. The volume of beer delivered for this contract represents more than the total sales for the whole of January this year. Furthermore, all we had to do was take the bottles off the line, pack in boxes, onto pallets and out the door. Less than 24 hours from tank to lorry. 12 pallets of beer in 2 shipments three weeks apart. Save for the stress of meeting the deadlines, and a couple of long bottling shifts, it was a breeze.

We love the rest of our customer base too. We like having a variety of beers, we’d get bored otherwise. However, it can be a real logistics problem making sure we have the right beers in stock, in the right packaging and ready to ship. Every week Graeme, my production brewer, hassles me for a brew plan. I have to refer him to Ann who can try and guess what people are going to order in two or three weeks time. We never guess right. Almost always we have too little of this, and too much of that. Last time we did a stock take we had over £20k of beer stock, just to be able to keep enough on stock for potential orders.

If I only had Sainsbury’s as a customer I would not need to keep £20k of beer in stock and could operate a leaner just-in-time business. I would then have £20k more in the bank, or at least, owe the bank £20k less.

The exercise has made me realize that supermarkets are not loss leading, they are doing deals with breweries to shift volume. The loser may well be the pub, and this is unfortunate. But you can’t buy Continuum, or Azimuth, or Queboid, or even Katalyst in Sainsbury’s. At least not yet. I expect that if they take on any of these beers we may well invent something else exclusive for the on-trade, it’s not really that tricky.

Supermarkets give a very powerful and cost effective way of getting our beers to the people who want to drink them. It helps us get our beers to people who can’t normally get them. It helps get beers to people who might not be able to get to pubs as often as they like, perhaps because they have young children, or live somewhere where it’s a car drive to the nearest decent pub.

Obviously I’d like to get through to the next round of the competition, where we supply for a 6 month period, at a price that is slightly better. The bad news for you guys is that the price on the shelf will likely go up.

However, if we don’t succeed in this round, and to be fair the odds are against us, we’ll look elsewhere for similar volumes. After all, we have staff wages to pay and a bottling line that needs using to be worth having.

Meanwhile, be pleased that Infra Red is available at a really knock-down price, take advantage and fill your shopping trolley.

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¹20,000 doesn't divide by the supply size of cases of 12.

Infra Red will be in Sainsbury's

You might have heard of the Sainsbury's Great British Beer Hunt. Indeed, if you regularly buy beer from Sainsbury's you might have been invited to judge. I like the scheme because it's not based purely on taste, although obviously taste plays a huge part.

Don't get me wrong, I see the point of blind tastings, and on pure technical brewing skill there is no better test. However, the best beer in the world is pointless if the drinker isn't attracted by it's bottle label. Great beer could stay on the shelf gathering dust if the buyer walks on by. Clearly a brewery name can count for a lot, a sense of security, the buyer knows what he is getting. Equally a great label design can be the difference between success and failure.

The Sainsbury competition starts with the judges choosing a number of bottles they like the look of. Clearly any preconceived notion of the breweries trustworthiness, the appeal of the bottle label etc will have an influence. The judge is then asked to rank the the top 5 from their choice based on subsequent tasting.

We entered four beers, including Infra Red. We couldn't enter any beers that were already listed in Booths, as this would be against the rules. This eliminated Continuum, Code Black, Azimuth and Queboid. Still, it left Infra Red, which we had requested should be permitted to go through to the National Finals, were it to be good enough.

And it was, good enough that is. I have no idea if it did well because it's a Hardknott beer, and there are people who know and trust our beer. I can't say if perhaps the very good work done by LemonTop Creative influenced a few who had never heard of us. Or perhaps the beer is just a good beer that impressed. I may be biased, but I do think it's a great beer, mainly due to the huge amount of Cascade and Centennial hops we pile into the stuff and a healthy balance of maltiness.

I suspect it is a combination of all three. But, never the less, we got through to the National competition. This involves us selling quite a lot of beer to Sainsbury's at a price a little below what we'd really like to sell beer for. It will then appear on the shelves all over the country. People will buy it and if enough people buy it then we will get a prize of a more permanent listing.

The good news for you, the drinker, is that our beer will be available for a short while at a really great price.  The good news for me is that if lots of you go out and buy it from Sainsbury's whilst it's on offer we'll get a more permanent listing that, by the time we average out the promotional deals and the regular prices, will actually be worth doing.

So, if you'd like to see out beer more widely available, go and buy Infra Red from Sainsbury's during September, and tell your mates to do the same.

Now, you'll have to excuse me, I need to order a huge amount of Cascade and Centennial hops.