Renaissance Brewing gets birthday export orders — Exporter Magazine
Photo: Roger Kerrison (left) and Brian Thiel.
Renaissance Brewing celebrated its 10th birthday last week with continuing growth in its export markets. The award winning company, who brews in the gourmet province of Marlborough, New Zealand received orders in the last month valued at over $250k to the USA, Japan, Australia, China and Singapore.
“With the start of a new fiscal year we were tracking well and these new orders are a great birthday present for us, it’s what the team have been working so hard towards the last two years,” says CEO Brian Thiel. “The crowdfunding with Snowball Effect, the addition of resource, travel around the globe, partnerships with agencies like NZTE, financing – it’s all been part of the plan.”
Renaissance has been working closely with NZTE alongside their market and programme managers who provide assistance in validation and establishment of potential export markets.
“We are a small company with limited resources, but we have a focused plan to step up to the next level through export growth,” says Roger Kerrison, who looks after market development for Renaissance. We have some highly experienced people on board helping us build our offering overseas and we are building great partnerships. One example is Asia where we have been working with Craig Campbell and his team at CCJ to help navigate and penetrate into new markets – the advice, mentoring and delivery has been fantastic. We have shown flexibility and been able to meet the needs of the customer at every step. It’s great to see these new and significant orders for the Renaissance beers from Asia – a great reward for so much hard work by all the team.”
Last month the ANZ reported in their Craft Beer Market report that craft beer sales in the off-trade in New Zealand were growing at a rate of 42% per annum. The ANZ, who are also Renaissance’s banking partner, also reported that Asia was a potential fertile ground for New Zealand craft beer.
Thiel strongly agrees with this: “When you talk about establishing business in Asia, it’s a serious commitment by Renaissance and we are seeing regular new orders for 20ft and 40ft containers. One of our recent Asian orders was for four full containers from a large global retailer, which we believe is New Zealand’s largest ever export order for craft beer. We are also seeing good growth out of the UK with The Collective and are set to start shipping to Norway, Malaysia, Korea and Ontario with several other new markets under final discussion. Only last week we had enquiries from Vietnam and the Philippines – the interest in Renaissance continues to grow at a pleasing pace. Renaissance is making the right investments to lead craft beer in Asia and meet the needs of the growing consumer base for craft beer.”
Renaissance was founded in September 2005 by brothers-in-law Thiel and Andy Deuchars at the Dodsons Street Brewery. It now boasts just under 300 shareholders, 14 export markets, two sites and a staff of 12.
