Sonaya (00:01):

All right. So welcome, Rob. Thank you so much for being with us today and joining this interview. We would love to hear a little bit about Toast Ale, how it got started and and everything about it. 

Rob Wilson (00:18):

Thank you so much for having me. It’s an absolute pleasure and yeah, let me sort of give you the spiel. So I’m Rob, Chief Toaster, Co-Founder and CEO at Toast Ale. And we started this, sustainable beer business five years ago. Now it’s almost five years to the day actually. Ultimately we’re on a mission to prove that the alternative to food waste is both delicious and pint-sized. So we brew our freaking tasty, craft beer using yesterday’s bread from bakeries, or surplus bread from sandwich manufacturers and turn it into our beer. We pour all our profits into environmental charities fighting food waste. In a very cheesy way, we like to say we’re the best thing, since you know what. It’s been a bonkers five years and the last 12 months, obviously even more, crazy than the other four years. But to be honest, all of our five years have been, have been pretty mad.

Nuala Conneely (01:44):

The whole idea came from a friend of mine. So I definitely can’t claim, playing the idea though, technically, nor can he – we’ve been brewing with bread for millennia. So the first ever beer recipe that was discovered from about 3000 BC was brewed with surplus bread and that’s how beer was routinely made, to make up part of the grain in a beer. My friend Tristram Stuart, who’s a food waste campaigner and environmental activist – he and I were having a chat probably six years ago now, talking about the issue of food waste and the fact that the food system has by far the biggest impact on the environment. People typically think of the energy industry or the transportation industry.

Rob Wilson (02:38):

But it’s the food system that causes deforestation and uses a lot of that transportation and energy, but it’s a really inefficient system. So one third of all food that we produce is wasted. It’s over a billion tons every year. It’s just crazy how inefficient the food system is. And then he started talking about the fact that the worst offender of them all was the humble loaf of bread. We recognized that you could brew beer with bread and 44% of bread that’s baked in the UK is wasted. So he kind of said, let’s get wasted on waste. Let’s, let’s start up a beer company and let’s see if we can have some fun trying to solve this solution, whilst brewing great beer. And Toast was born and that, I suppose really sort of articulates the origins. Um, and there’s been four of us really at the center of Toast since the beginning – Louisa, myself, Julie and David, putting into action this great concept and idea that our friend Tristram had, who remains involved, but carries on doing much of his environmental activism, whilst we have the fun and games of running a beer business. So yeah, that’s sort of the origin story of toast.

 Sonaya (04:06):

Yeah. Well, that’s pretty amazing. I mean, I love the stats that you have on your website. 2 million slices saved. I love that. When I walk around Copenhagen, we have tons of bakeries. Like I have a two-year-old and a four-year-old and after school, their whole thing is, are we going to get bread? This is the bakery right across the street from their school. And it’s become a habit ever since my mother came when I was pregnant my second child two years ago and she made this habit of taking my older daughter to the bakery every single day and getting a bun. And so now we’ve had to carry that habit on, but the bakery closes at four and if you don’t get in there, you can see them throwing the bread away. And I’m just like all that bread that’s left over there, they just get rid of it and they start fresh the next day. And I’m just like, my kids would love some of that bread.

 Rob Wilson (04:54):

Yeah. So lovely to hear about your kids, by the way, I’ve got a six year old and a three-year-old and SO I know the sort of feeling well of them demanding baked treats regularly, the donuts for their birthdays is sort of the absolute sort of mainstay. And then, um, yeah, we try, I try just not to walk past bakeries too often. So if, if you’re, if you’re finding it hard to avoid what you are, that’s, that’s tough. Um, and, um, and then yeah, juggling kids at the moment with, uh, homeschool and things is, uh, yeah, it’s just something else. Um, but, um, yeah, I mean, ultimately it’s bread is, is cheap to make. Um, it has high profit margins, um, and a huge amount is wasted. I mean, consumers just expect, you know, day fresh bread on the whole, especially from bakeries.

 Rob Wilson (05:47):

Uh, obviously the, the bread we’re buying in supermarkets will typically have three or four days shelf life. Um, but, but even then it’s, it’s quite a rapid. Um, and so a lot is wasted. There’s some great apps that, that one can use so calmer or too good to go are both really fantastic, um, kind of web apps that you can install load onto your phone. It points you towards any local shop or restaurant that might have surplus food. And so often you’ll find baked goods like croissants and brownies and donuts, um, that bakeries will have made they fresh. And then at the end of the day, or even sort of by lunchtime, they know they’re not going to sell any croissants at full price. So you can just go into those apps and then buy them at a discount. Um, but the shop doesn’t have to, I guess, sort of show their discount in store.

 Rob Wilson (06:38):

They can just do it all via this app. So it’s, um, yeah, there’s some really neat ways, but ultimately masses of bread and baked goods are still wasted. So, um, yeah, we’re, we’re then trying to turn it into our beer. And like you said, so there’s a, there’s the equivalent to a slice of surplus bread in every single bottle or can, or sort of pint it’s about a slice and a half and a pint, um, which is slightly less catchy. Uh, so basically that’s sort of it’s life in a can or a bottle. Um, and, um, and yeah, so far we’re sort of somewhere between two and 3 million slices, um, brewed up. Um, but, but a big part of what we do is, is open source the recipe and the concept, um, which is where we intend to have most impact. So our recipe has been downloaded now, well over 60,000 times, I think we’re nearly at 70,000 downloads and that’s where we believe we’re having, uh, an almost exponential impact in terms of now dozens and dozens and dozens of breweries all around the world. I think there’s nearly a hundred breweries around the world who have now brewed with surplus bread at a more industrial scale, and then thousands of home brewers who are brewing using some surplus bread. So, um, yeah, that’s where I think we can have more impacts than, than I’ll direct it back to them.

Sonaya (07:58):

Yeah. That’s, that’s really big because that’s like, you’ve like, I see the home brew recipe on your website, but then that’s like you reaching out having the impact through other people, um, by them doing the same thing. So yeah.

Rob Wilson (08:13):

Uh, it’s, it’s kind of, um, obviously it’s, um, it’s almost mutually beneficial. Like we, we want to benefit, um, the wider environment, but it also, uh, I think gives consumers even more, uh, sort of brand loyalty to who we are and what we are because of the way we approach things by just opening it up and open sourcing and, um, and yeah, ultimately, um, we’re thinking in a systemic way. I mean, we, we truly only exist to try and shift both the wider food industry, but specifically we’re wanting to change the brewing industry as a, as, as a starting point. And, um, if we only ever continue to brew beer ourselves and not working collaboration and partnership with others, then it’s very unlikely. We’re going to change the system it’s it’s, uh, whilst we hope, uh, but it remains highly unlikely that we’re going to be bigger than Heineken or, um, or sort of Carlsberg, uh, anytime soon. So, um, we kind of, uh, remain realists, uh, at it’s better for us to influence others than, than necessarily try and, uh, take on the entire beer industry ourselves.

Sonaya(09:23):

Yeah. You have to go with the forces. So at the time of us recording this, it’s just about a year since COVID and Corona and the pandemic and everything that has happened in the world. Um, for us, it will be kind of before we started recording, talked a little bit about how our business has shifted through the pandemic. What was your business model, I guess, pre the pandemic and kind of like, how has it shifted due to the academic?

Rob Wilson (09:56):

Yeah, so I think like so many businesses out there, so it’s far from an original, um, narrative, to be honest. Um, but yeah, I mean, it’s turned on its head almost, um, being a beer business about 70% of our trade was with restaurants, bars, pubs, um, what you would call the on trade in, um, in the world of, uh, beer and, uh, about 30% is, uh, or was rather sort of retail, um, based, um, which you call the off trade. And so, and then a fraction of a percent was, was online e-commerce. Um, and then very quickly in obviously sort of winter spring last year, that all just got turned on its head. 70% of our customers were shut down. Um, now this time, last year to be fair, most places in the on trade. So those bars, restaurants, pubs were at least allowed to serve beer for takeaway. So pubs were closed, but they were still sort of delivering beer to people’s doors. People were still allowed to go and collect beer from them. Um, now

Rob Wilson (11:16):

Super creative. Now the government of even wanted to sort of stifle that understandably because obviously the infection rate is, is what it is. Um, and so they’ve now even stopped the sort of takeaway service. You can’t go and collect alcohol from anywhere. Um, so that’s sort of just becoming even harder hit. Um, and so we obviously have to get creative as much as the pubs, restaurants and bars, but that, so that, that probably turned from 70% of our business to about 10% of our business. Uh, it’s still remained in existence, but, but radically reduced. And then even in the, when things opened up, um, the big breweries were just flooding the market with free beer or very, very cheap beer. So the big breweries, and again, it’s understandable. It’s the way businesses, I don’t hold a grudge. It just is what it is. But the big breweries were using the summer months as an opportunity to claw back what the craft beer business had really spent 10 to 15 years eroding from the big breweries.

Rob Wilson (12:19):

So having probably built up about 20% market share, I would say the craft beer, the craft breweries were really pushed out last summer from big breweries. The Anheuser-Busch is the, Heinekens the calls, books, the assault, he’s all wanting to just flood the market with very, very, very cheap beer or free beer. So restaurants and pubs that have had a tough time, understandably we’re just lapping it up. And, um, and, and, you know, taking, taking every opportunity they could. So it’s, it’s been a tough environment therefore for the craft beer industry. Um, and so, yeah, so we had to innovate, so we had to change and, um, yeah, it turns out Jeff Bezos was onto a good thing. Um, we’re just about 20 years too late. Um, but thankfully not too late. So I think that’s the thing I think having started the business five years ago, even then I kind of, ah, well, yeah, you know, e-commerce, but surely we’re too late to the game now.

Speaker 2 (13:14):

I mean, people are doing it well. And so let’s not try and sell beer online and the people really want to buy beer online and all that sort of stuff goes through your head and then you sort of put it to the bottom of your list and it would come up almost every quarter in a kind of board meeting where we’d talk about it, board of directors say, you know, what’s our sort of online strategy and it would always just get back to the bottom of the list. And it’s kind of like, well, no, I mean, things are going well with pubs and restaurants and bars and, you know, we’re in national supermarkets in the UK as well. So, you know, we just don’t need to worry. Um, and then it wasn’t until our hand was forced that we realized, yeah. I mean, it’s a, it’s an amazing, it’s an amazing place to sell your product, which has just sounds so insanely, um, yeah, sort of ridiculous and juvenile, uh, to be kind of waking up to the fact in 2020, uh, obviously now it’s 2021, but at the time 2020 that the internet is a good place to sell your product.

Speaker 2 (14:14):

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So how does this work? And, um, and so, yeah, just like, I guess we to have a shop, so we did have beer online, but genuinely it was less than 1% of our sales revenue. And then yeah, it very quickly turned into 50% of our sales revenue, um, and pretty much stayed there. Uh it’s uh, and, and replaced. Um, so our, our revenue, um, in 2020, uh, it was very similar to our revenue in 2019. Um, but with 70% of our trade, you know, change with the online shop

Sonaya (14:52):

You had before, it was 1% because you really weren’t driving anything to it that wasn’t a focus in your marketing,

Speaker 2 (14:59):

It’s kind of everything. It was, um, it was clunky, uh, I mean, at best it was clunky. It was to be that you really wanted to buy beer. If you complete the sale, he made it through everything possible to kind of almost just like, you know, wind you up, um, and, uh, and make it a bit of a clunky experience. Um, and then obviously we weren’t doing it because we weren’t proud of it. We knew it was clunky, but it sort of served its purpose to capture those that were so detailed. Um, and yeah. And then, um, and so we, weren’t looking at things like conversion rates or how much to spend on acquiring customers or, uh, drop-off rates, um, through the kind of checkout process, how much we can sort of get people to buy up how we can get repeat custom. So there’s stuff that we’re still making it up as we go along.

Speaker 2 (15:53):

Um, I could certainly use some of your, um, expertise and words of wisdom. I’m certain because we are definitely, um, making it up as we go along in terms of e-commerce and just doing lots of, yeah. Listening to podcasts and, uh, reading articles and Googling. Um, I’ve genuinely just before this conversation, we’ve just had a team meeting where we’ve just done a whole load of analysis on our numbers for the very first time. Um, so sales have been great and we’ve had about nearly a year of sales being great online, but we’ve not really crunched the numbers. We’ve not really analyzed the detail and the data and try to sort of move the needle on certain things. We’ve just been kind of doing it as we, because we’re just trying to review it now.

Sonaya(16:39):

Yeah. And it sounds like, so now you’re, you’ve tested it. It’s working. How do you make it repeatable? Like what numbers work? What did we do to now make it be 50%?

Speaker 2 (16:48):

Exactly. That’s

Sonaya (16:49):

What I find a lot of people do when they start to come online is, Oh, they do a launch, they get it out there and it worked. Now they try to do it again, the next quote. And they’re like, well, what did we do? How do we make it happen again?

Speaker 2 (17:03):

Yeah. And, and, and, and so we, we have, and it’s also just back to basics of, so we also, we, we spent and wasted, um, probably about 20,000 pounds, which again is not a lot of money in the grand scheme of like e-marketing, but we, we wasted around 20 grand, um, in August and September on a sort of digital marketing agency that just didn’t perform. Um, but that was, I would say less. I mean, I wouldn’t want to sort of have too much of a dig at them. It was probably as much just us, again, just not understanding our data, not really understanding what we wanted to achieve, how we would achieve it, no idea what our sort of average customer lifetime was and therefore how much we would even want to spend on acquiring a customer. It was just, let’s spend 20,000 pounds trying to get some more customers, um, a bit more sophisticated than that, but, but pretty crudely that’s, that was our sort of mindset of, okay, let’s keep this buoyant, let’s throw some money at it.

Speaker 2 (18:08):

Um, and I think now it’s really realizing, okay, you, you need to get into the weeds of the data to really understand what is working, what isn’t working. Um, and, and yet keep it, keep it buoyant because it’s so much more enjoyable dealing with our customers directly than any other way of operating, to be honest. I mean, again, I wouldn’t want to bad mouth, any of our wholesalers or distributors who are all great, but it is more enjoyable working directly with our customers. It’s lovely, like being able to, you know, drop an email to someone that’s bought your latest beer that was brewed last week and, you know, get their feedback and insights and, uh, you know, what did they love? What didn’t they love this evening, I’m doing a, uh, you know, a zoom call with all the customers who have brought our very latest, limited edition beer. They will have the opportunity to log onto a zoom call and connect and talk about it, or head brewer logs in. Um, and we just have a really interactive conversation and yeah, that’s because we know exactly who’s purchased our beer and we can communicate with them and we can send them that link. But previously, you know, if I’d have emailed all our web customers, it would have been like three customers, my mom and my wife. And so it’s kind of, at least it’s a little bit more engaged now.

Sonaya (19:34):

Yeah. And so like, you’re building a community and you’re able to, like you said, get their feedback and kind of know what they like, what they didn’t like, how did you find us? Like, what did you actually search in Google to, to pull up toast ale? Um, I feel like a lot of the bigger breweries don’t give that experience. And no matter how big a company you are, the people that buy from you, they’re, they’re still people. And they want that interaction. And I think that that customer experience, um, a lot of companies are missing big or small. A lot of companies are missing that. And I mean, for an, for an example, we just onboarded a new client and she wants to launch a year long program. And one of the things we’re going to do for her is really get in contact with some of her clients and talk to them. And it’s like, Oh, you want to talk to them? I’ll find some people for you to talk to, but she hasn’t done that. And a lot of people don’t take that time to really talk to your client and find out who they are, what they really want to do, what they enjoy doing, why they enjoy working with you. Like just those simple things can help, help a business grow.

Speaker 2 (20:42):

Yup. Yup. Yup. I think I don’t then to sort of share, um, I guess some of the challenges that we face with it still though, and I’d love your, um, yeah. Just, you know, quickly, uh, use and abuse you for some free consultancy. So, um, so, um, we, um, yeah, where we have a bit of a challenge is that Amazon, we still not really sort of got into at all yet. And again, uh, it’s obviously having sort of joked about the sort of Jeff Bezos was onto a good thing. I mean, ultimately we’re basically still focused on toast, dale.com and we haven’t yet moved into sort of amazon.com partly because we then think, okay, that’s a, how do we do that without then providing a bit of a distraction for our core message of go to toast, ale.com to buy toast. Um, so we obviously just want to acquire the millions of millions and millions of consumers that are obviously just on Amazon and we’d much rather do the shopping on Amazon and not have to check out at toast, dell.com and Amazon.

Speaker 2 (21:48):

Um, so I suppose there’s that, but just how to do that effectively. And then also, like I say, because we’re with national retailers, waitrose.com, macado.com who we also have big deals with and we’re in, you know, 260 Waitrose stores across the country, but we’re also on waitrose.com. How do we make sure that we’re giving them that you sort of love care, attention driving customers there? Um, when there’s also a bit of a self-interest now for the very first time to be driving them to toast l.com. And so, yeah, that’s sort of an ongoing challenge, I suppose, that we’re conscious of that we haven’t really put a lot of thought into how do you make the most of amazon.com acardo.com and waitress.com others sort of.com platforms whilst promoting yourselves as well?

Sonaya(22:37):

Yeah, because who wouldn’t want to be on Amazon with all the people that search on there and that are shopping on Amazon. But then I guess to me, one of the questions I would ask is, are, are your customers, will your customers buy beer from Amazon? Like, are your, are those your customers that are there? Cause I know you’re a very sustainable mission driven business. Yeah. I don’t know that I’ll and it’s worth a test. A lot of those people will buy from Amazon. Or do you, like you said, focus on the partners you have and maybe find more partners outside of Amazon to sell your beer. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (23:16):

Yeah. It’s true. I mean, I guess it feels like with Amazon though, it’s one of those things that, unless you’re extremely, um, sort of environmentally conscious or sustainably conscious, you’re probably still shopping on Amazon. I mean, just, you know, everyone’s on, um,

Sonaya(23:37):

Find something on Amazon. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (23:39):

And so, um, even if it’s sort of guilt ridden purchasing, um, yes. Still buying on Amazon. And so, yeah, I guess it’s how to sort of approach, um, something like that through a completely different lens to your own toast, ale.com. And so is it just treating it like it’s a different domain, it’s, it’s a sort of an internet in and of itself that yeah. You just need to make sure that you’re looking at the search rankings within Amazon so that when someone’s searching beer on Amazon that were popping up and you don’t need to tell your own customers to go and shop there, it’s just making sure that anyone that types in beer or sustainable beer, um, that were popping up and, um, therefore sort of apparent.

Sonaya (24:21):

Yeah. And then you have toast Hill and you have Amazon as like the spaces that you sell that you can sell on outside of the other partners as well. Yeah. And then optimizing that, like you said, optimizing that for the keywords and your descriptions and all of those things so that you do show up in there. Yeah. I agree with Cynthia. I think it’s absolutely worth a try. And so many people do shop on Amazon and want to get everything there, um, these days. Um, and like you said, I think there, there could be a concern that a minority of, of real sustainability advocates are really against, um, Amazon as a whole, but I think there’s so many people in so much, um, opportunity for you to try it out.

Speaker 2 (25:07):

Yeah. Yeah. Well, so see, that’s so that’s kind of next, I guess, for us, in terms of just thinking of growing e-commerce is then yeah. Just finding those additional marketplaces, but, but really I think I was saying, you know, back to basics that sort of e-marketing and things like that just works so effectively for us. I mean, we’re growing our sort of subscription list and mailing list. Um, every month we’re looking at, you know, cross promotions with other brands. Um, and when we’re doing cross promotion, not necessarily just focusing on the, how many followers we’ve got on Instagram or how many followers we’ve got on other social media platforms, but what we know is most effective, um, really relates to how many email subscribers do we have, that’s where we get the very best conversion rates. And so how do you then do cross promotions that focus on that?

Speaker 2 (25:55):

So if you’re running a competition rather than necessarily just doing number of like, you know, like our Instagram page, do it kind of sign up to our mailing list. Um, and then you sort of stand a chance of winning the competition. You might get, you know, uh, 50% less people clicking, um, to put in their email address versus just clicking like your page. But that 50% is so much more valuable than the additional likes you might’ve got. And so starting and again, because we’re just making it up, we don’t really know the data we just know for us what is working and it’s just an intuitive business sense of what is working and what isn’t working. Um, that’s yeah. It’s and it’s, it’s, it’s obviously when it’s your own business, it’s so fun crunching the data on it. I mean, it’s just, it’s, it’s horribly addictive and it’s, it feels like a never ending minefield as well. Um,

Sonaya (26:50):

You see the numbers and you’re like, Oh, I want to try this and see how that’s going to change the numbers next month.

Speaker 2 (26:54):

Yeah, totally. Um, yeah. It’s, it’s, it’s great.

Sonaya (27:00):

That’s amazing. So, so basically you would say that through this period you’ve introduced now e-commerce and more, you’ve put a focus on online sales and it’s replaced your sales from like, not the retailers, cause this is retail, but more of the B2B.

Speaker 2 (27:20):

Yeah. So this is kind of, yeah. Replacing the, um, you know, the bars and the restaurants and the pubs. I mean, what were your, see, I don’t know is, um, you know, I, I, I think Brits on the whole drank their way through lockdown one, that was for sure. Um, I think, I think the world over, but I know that Brits for sure, uh, did a lot of, uh, drinking their way through spring last year. And as soon as pubs and bars and restaurants are open and we’ve got an amazing culture in this country for, um, you know, pop culture and pubs are at the center of the community. And I, you know, for sure on a personal consumer basis, as well as a business owner wants to make sure that pubs are thriving. And so I definitely don’t want consumers to be thinking all of their beer purchases are going to be, um, online and they’re not going to be, you know, cause I don’t want people drinking at home, uh, before drinking in pumps and in restaurants and you know, in, in community and drinking with friends, um, obviously big retailers are selling a lot of beer.

Speaker 2 (28:23):

Um, so I’ve much rather people are buying directly from companies like toast ale, um, than necessarily via retail, but clearly retail is going to have its convenience. But so yeah, I don’t know. I don’t know how, how sustainable it is. That’s that’s, what’s the big question Mark is, um, as soon as society starts to get a bit more back to normal, I’ve got no doubt. There will be a lot of those customers that are buying from us online that we will be able to retain, but equally I’m very conscious that a lot will drop off, um, because there’s only so much beer, everybody wanting to drink. And as soon as they can go to the pub to have a pint, uh, I hope they will. And so how we, uh, how we deal with that change will be very interesting to, um, to observe. Um, and, and hopefully, um, our sort of our, our sort of on-trade sales will really start to pick up again.

Speaker 2 (29:19):

Um, but that’s where we’re then sort of pivoting a little bit to things like the gifting market, where there is throughout the year, whatever the scenario going to be, uh, a real interest in, in, in obviously buying unique propositions. And again, that’s what we hadn’t really thought of before, but being a very sustainable craft beer business. Um, and there are millions of consumers that are interested in, uh, both beer and sustainability. Um, it’s kind of the sort of Venn diagram of someone who’s watched a David Attenborough documentary recently, and someone that enjoys their beer. You know, we’re in that sweet spot of if you, if you’ve done both, um, you’re going to be really interested in toast and therefore getting into things like the gifting market, where someone’s just looking for a, a gift for their sister or gift for their uncle or a gift for their husband. Um, it’s kind of thinking, yeah, this, this is the kind of opportunity that, that maybe we can also feel,

Sonaya (30:16):

Right. Yeah. Cause I think the gifting space is definitely something that happens all year round. And I think even still through the pandemic, people are trying to get creative with how they can express to other to their family members, especially when they can’t see them. I know for me, I did send a lot of online gifts during this pandemic because I wasn’t able to go see my mom or able to go see family. Yeah. So I feel like that’s a huge space kind of untapped by a lot of people.

Speaker 2 (30:44):

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think so. Um, and so yeah, how, again, just the longevity is, so it’s so difficult to understand in this market, which is just so variable right now, um, as to what will stick and what won’t. Um, but I think that’s where we’re also, um, trying to have, um, yes, I guess sort of a lot of fingers in a lot of pies, um, to try and, uh, figure out kind of which part of our online strategy is going to be most successful. So both having our core range online, having gifts online, where we’re releasing a lot of limited additions now as well. So leading up to cop 26, a big climate change summit happening next November. Um, we’re now collaborating with us. So we’re a certified B Corp. I didn’t mention that earlier, but as a B Corp, it, it means we have, uh, a degree of sort of external accreditation for the fact that we put, uh, people and planet alongside profit.

Speaker 2 (31:44):

Um, and, um, we’re partnered with other B-Corp. So divine chocolate, a great B Corp in the UK make outstanding chocolate. We worked with them to brew a really delicious chocolate stout, and then there’s a great sustainable tea. Uh B-Corp um, uh, called T pigs. Uh, one of the great teas is lemon grass tea. Um, as we’ve used some of that lemon grass in one of our 0% lagers. So we’ve reduced this alcohol free lager infused with lemon grass to give it an extra citrus kick. It’s absolutely delicious. Um, and we’re doing these releases purely online every kind of six weeks or so now, now, so again, giving our online audience a reason to come and repeat custom. So that’s obviously a really important part of, of online sales, just getting repeat customers. Um, but most, you know, I understand it. I think people want something, if they’re going to buy again, they want to know what’s the latest, what’s the newest. So at the moment we’ve got kind of, I guess, a lot of, yeah, a lot of, um, irons in the fire, um, to see what, what lands best.

Sonaya(32:51):

Yeah. And I feel like that’s the beauty about being able to create different, different, like new revenue streams, because you’re able to see what works, what doesn’t work, and maybe you turn the dial up on one, one month or one quarter and then a next quarter, it’s something else. Um, I think that’s, for us, that’s kind of like what works in terms of going with the flow. How has, how has COVID impacted your team? Has your team been impacted at all? Yeah,

Speaker 2 (33:19):

I mean, significant to be, to be honest. Um, so we, um, we ended up, uh, we, we did everything possible to support our team, but we were equally just very, very honest with our team. So, uh, the government work hugely helpful, um, in providing financial support to, um, employees, um, and are still providing that support now. So the UK government have been, I think, outstanding at supporting businesses through this. Um, but we’ve lost about half our team, um, throughout the, uh, the last year, um, where they could still be here, but we were very honest with them to say, look, it’s just going to be a tough recovery. And we’re really not certain that when the government support stops, whether we’re really going to be in a position to, to bounce back from this. Um, and also because of our changing, you know, our changing market where things are moving online, not needing as many, um, sort of boots on the ground, um, selling to, uh, bottle shops and to bars and restaurants.

Speaker 2 (34:28):

Um, and so kind of saying to some of those sales team that, you know, and just having very human conversations and saying, ultimately you can sit sort of on government support for the year, or if you can go and find other work, then ultimately we’re going to be supportive because we think it’s going to take a long time for things to bounce back. And when they do, obviously our door will be open and let’s have a conversation then, um, but you know, in the meantime, keep yourselves saying an active, um, and if you get off what to do and, and thankfully everyone has. So I think it’s, uh, clearly it is a really challenging job market. Of course it is. I don’t want to say anything different, but from our really outstanding team, um, it’s been great to see that yeah, several of them were able to go and find work elsewhere.

Speaker 2 (35:16):

Um, so, so yeah, I guess that’s, that’s been the most significant change. Um, so I mean, we’re a very small team anyway, so it meant sort of reducing from about 12 to about six. Um, and, uh, we, um, I think it will be a while before we staff up again, to be honest, I think it’s, it’s, it’s going be, uh, uh, I think a fairly slow recovery out of COVID a lot of bars and restaurants and pubs are going to go under. Um, and so yeah, how that bounces back, I’m not sure. Uh, and then really obviously like connecting as a team, just very different offices or working from home, juggling childcare. I mean, I’m looking after the, I say sort of looking after I’m trying to teach the kids as best as I can, but a future in my hands for the first time, um, sort of, you know, in sales sort of ones, I’m, my wife runs her own business as well.

Speaker 2 (36:09):

And so, um, the two of us trying to sort of run businesses and, uh, juggled the, that sort of homeschooling. So I’m on until one o’clock, um, in the afternoon, just focused on the kids and then from one I’m working, um, and my wife and I sort of swap over, um, but obviously other members of the team have different work patterns with their home lives. Um, and so even just connecting as a team is very different, obviously right now. Um, just I think really just a lot of empathy, a lot of making sure you truly empathize with everyone in your team and the situation that we’re all in at the moment.

Sonaya (36:49):

Yeah. It’s, it’s really hard. I mean, for us, us as well, we have, uh, two other moms on the team and they’re homeschooling as well. They’re in the UK and, uh, it’s, it’s been challenging. And what I’ve been saying is like, and I think it’s kind of what I’ve had with our projects in general. I’m really more about the deadline then the time that you work. So if you aren’t able to work during the day, that’s, you know, that’s kind of where we are right now. And you know, some of, some of them will be online trying to get things done Saturday morning or in between the kids or on late. And for, for our business, it works that way. I mean, I’ve been lucky enough here in Copenhagen that my kid’s school is still open because they’re under 11, but all kids over 11 are homeschooled. So I’m lucky enough that I fell in that old enough to be in school. Yeah. But yet the empathy is huge.

Speaker 2 (37:48):

Yeah. I mean, it’s quite so, uh, we had this, um, kind of like, hello, I just saw it this morning. Our chancellor Rishi Sue knack, um, had sort of just been quoted this morning on a sort of radio interview, thanking all the millions of mums, um, homeschooling, um, uh, their kids at the moment. And just the number of issues that, that creates in kind of generalizing the fact that it’s the women who are doing the homeschooling is just both those sexist and terrible lead. By that example, as a government minister on the assumption, sadly, the statistics are pretty true as well, that the vast majority of the people homeschooling are the women and the mums, um, and women are disproportionately impacted by COVID, um, for that reason to finding a much harder in the workplace and things. Um, but also then you kind of quietly sort of speak up for the dads, uh, of which there are also millions, uh, albeit far, far less than the, uh, than the mums, uh, but still millions who are trying to homeschool as well. And you just think, Oh God, I mean, if our government ministers are leading with this kind of

Speaker 2 (39:02):

Really no hope. Um, but yeah, what a, what a crazy time, uh, I mean, we’re all in, so yeah, I think empathy is, is ultimately the key word.

Sonaya 39:12):

It definitely is. Well, I thank you for this. I feel like I’ve learned a lot about toast ale and how you guys are operating in this time and congrats on making the shift and the success with moving online and tapping into the, I guess you were in e-commerce but more stripping that money,

Speaker 2 (39:36):

Sort of a barely sort of thing. I mean, I wouldn’t, I there’ll be, um, colleagues, if they listen to this, who would say, Rob, what the hell are you saying? I mean, my job was making sure we had a website. So we did, we did have the sort of the basics, but now I think if we all did a bit of soul searching, it was, uh, it was what actually one thing just before we sort of wrap up just one thing to also just plug is that we, um, we did also, um, launch what we were really, really proud of early on in the sort of pandemic where, uh, we launched what we called the meal deal. And for every beer that someone was buying, we can on our website, we were committed to funding, um, a meal for those in need during the pandemic.

Speaker 2 (40:18):

Um, and that ended up raising enough, um, money and attention to provide 50,000 meals to those in need, um, during lockdown one. And that was before some of the bigger companies and sort of government and resources started to kick in, uh, which thankfully has now kicked in. I think there’s some pretty good schemes out there now, which are very well-funded, um, that big business has started to sort of, you know, back into, but most big businesses needed to wait for their kind of quarterly board meeting and reviews, and then review the reviews before kind of just jumping into what is such common sense, um, sort of need in the community and the responsibility of business to just do whatever we could. And so, yeah, we’re just really, really proud of it. Um, this kind of very nimble, uh, meal deal that, that we launched within pretty much a week or so of the sort of first lockdown, uh, when we got together as a team and all thought, okay, what do we need to focus on now?

Speaker 2 (41:15):

And there was kind of thinking, well, the team and making sure the team’s all right, but then also just our wider community. Um, and I think that tested us in a way, like never before, but in a way that we’ve come out, the other side feeling really proud of how we approached it. Um, and kind of did some of the business strategy and number crunching after the initial thinking of, okay, we just need to do the right thing right now. And a lot of businesses that I fear could be judged on that inaction at that time, rather than their action.

Sonaya(41:48):

Yeah. And I think that’s a huge, that’s huge give back, especially during that time period when, like you said, all the other schemes were in place, so thank you for that. That’s a, that’s amazing. Yeah. Well, how can people find out where should people go to find out more about toasting?

Speaker 2 (42:04):

Yeah. So perfect place to plug. Uh, so yeah, very simply toast ale.com, follow us at toast, stale on all the usual, uh, social platforms. Um, and, uh, yeah. Uh, now that we’re best friends, if you’ve got this far in the podcast, um, uh, I’ll let you use my, uh, sort of pre-seed bonus discount of, I know Rob and, uh, that will give you a nice little discount, um, on the, uh, on the checkout as well. Uh, so yeah, so, um, it’s, um, yeah, it’s really trying to sort of get as many people as possible to go to toast ale.com and, um, yeah, and I guess tries for the first time we’ve got taster packs online where you can buy, um, a relatively small quantity of beer and just one of each of our, of our beers rather than needing to go all in and, um, buy the whole lot. And then it’s also free shipping and, uh, we’re trying to compete with, uh, with Bezos now. So it’s free shipping. You don’t need to be a prime member. Uh, so, um, I like that. Yeah, exactly. Our first one’s free. And then I think, you know, we’re just trying to make it all as accessible as possible and, and not just trying to sort of crunch the numbers on the margins. It’s, it’s more important that, um, people are, yeah. I think, you know, liquid on lips is what it’s called in the beer industry. We want to make sure that everyone’s, uh, drinking our products, enjoying our products. And, uh, when we are then back in the bars and pups, uh, people will ever remembered us and want to water us.

Sonaya (43:34):

Yeah. And definitely asking, asking for that at the, at the bar and then also getting people to go to your site so you can then be target them in your marketing

Speaker 2 (43:43):

Right, too. Right.

Sonaya (43:46):

Well, thank you again, Rob. This was amazing and yeah, I’m looking forward to getting to share this with everyone. So thank you.

Rob (43:53):

Absolutely. Thank you, sir.