A MORAY craft brewer has flagged the importance of e-commerce activity in filling the gap arising from the “severe impact” of the coronavirus crisis on trade sales.
Kinloss-based WooHa Brewing Company flagged increased e-commerce sales as it announced the addition of “session pale ale” Hello Friday to its range of core bottled beers. WooHa plans to raise production by a factor of 17 over three years, expanding in-house brewing capacity from 5,000 hectolitres to 88,000 hectolitres by June 2023.
Also in WooHa’s core range are craft lager Northern Mischief, an IPA named Hop Pinata, porter Rauch N’Roll, and “Scotch ale” Rogue Clan.
READ MORE: Ian McConnell: Whatever next from Boris on Brexit? A Tony the Tiger roar?
Asked about the effect of the Covid-19 crisis, a WooHa spokeswoman said: “Although there has been severe impact on trade sales, we have filled the gap with e-commerce sales.”
She noted five of the craft brewer’s 13 staff were currently furloughed.
WooHa exports to Russia, Italy, and Sweden, and it supplies the US military. In the UK, it sells beer directly to consumers through its own website, and Amazon, as well as through trade outlets. The brewer, founded by chief executive Heather McDonald, flagged a rebranding of its product range, moving away from its “widely recognised cartoon cow imagery, while still paying homage to its Scottish provenance”.
WooHa's current 6.2-acre site gives it capacity for its planned increased production
The brewer’s exports account for 41 per cent of total sales so far in 2020. WooHa aims to increase exports to 70% of total sales as it builds its network of global distributors.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel