When we started our little brewery here in the Hebrides we ordered all the bottle labels we could afford which meant the unit cost of them was fairly large. No economy of scale. Cash flow dictated. Now we are confident of surviving at least another year we have decided to order a decent quantity - perhaps a years worth - to get the price down a bit. That's clever we thought to ourselves. Then our top printer - in Ireland - phoned to ask how we would like the pallet delivered. PALLET. "Can't you just pop them in the post". "They are to big for the postbox" came the reply. The price of success. I wonder how Becks get their labels.
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We have finally got approval from the relevant bodies for our label. Behind the simple sentence lies a laugh or two. The main one being that food and drink labels have to have the address of the manufacturer or seller. The council thought we should have our full address: Isle of Colonsay Brewing Company Ltd
The Brewery
Dunorin
Scalasaig
Isle of Colonsay
Argyll
PA 61 7YZ
We thought it would not leave much room for anything else on our labels and resisted. Well the man from the council chucked a letter into the post address to Colonsay Brewery. That's it. Nice and simple. Save ink better for the environment. It got here. We replied. The label address remains unchanged. (What the council did not know is the deputy postie is also our MD so he knew where the brewery is on two counts)
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Its a bit quiet these days down the brewery shop. In fact opening hours have been reduced to just a lunchtime a week and if anyone wants beer outside of that you just have to phone. There's a steady trickle of internet sales but the truth has to be faced that after months of struggling to keep up with demand we are now in an over production situation. So: what to do? What we need is an effective way of distributing the beer on the mainland that can be kept going from our remote location. We're too small for the big distributors and too distant for door to door selling. There is one outlet that would be a perfect fit for us. Peckhams - the central belt chain of upmarket deli's who also have a wholesale business called Munro's which supplies other independent deli's - a perfect fit for us. Better still they like our beer. The only problem is they have not been able to list us yet because of a shortage of "codes" needed to intergrate our products into their system. So do we try and find others or hold out for them? Watch this space. You can bet that if we find someone else that fits the bill Peckhams will come back to us and say they've got the codes and we'll be back in a lack of beer position.
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Our head of sales used to work in the media and this week went to see some old pals who have a pr business. The idea being they would give a favourable rate (a couple of bottles) for some PR help. It seems they had a few cups of coffee and chatted about days gone by and not much else. So much for all this talk of the fast pace of life in the hurly burly of the media. Seems a life in the Scottish press is perfect preperation to the laid back way of the islands.
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At the request of one of the other stallholders - a beef farmer from Renfrewshire - the Colonsay Brewery will be at the Milngavie Farmers Christmas Market on Wednesday December 5 - makes sense to lump that in with the Glasgow market on the 8th - two markets for one ferry fare, that must be very fair ho ho. Then only trouble is its fancy dress bah humbug.
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