Hepworth Brewery are an envrironmentally-friendly brewery, making craft ales and lagers from locally grown hops. Not only are they low on food miles, their brewery’s solar panels provide electricity and the excess is dispersed to the National Grid. Reed beds also recondition wastewater and feed it back into the river Arun, with the approval of the Environmental Agency. We were pleased to work for an award-winning brewery with such good green credentials.

The Challenge: With pubs closed indefinitely because of COVID-19, breweries were particularly badly hit. Hepworth Brewery, however, had the insight to adapt to the change and move their beer sales online, where previously they had been totally reliant on pubs and their own brick and mortar shop. They tasked us with creating an online store capability with which they could sell thier product remotely.

Our Solution: We recommended using 18 hours of funded consultancy courtesy of the European Regional Development Fund to create and set-up a Shopify sales platform. We chose Shopify because all the software and hosting is provided by the platform, which made it easy to get up and running straight away, since time was of the essence. One thing to consider when setting up an eCommerce store is how you deal with sensitive customer information such as credit card details. Shopify takes care of all security and maintenance to ensure that information is safely stored at all times.

The Outcome: The brief was delivered on time and a fully functional Shopify account was created so Hepworth Brewery could continue to sell their products throughout the lockdown. The Managing Director, Andy Hepworth said:

“Arthur was pleasant and honest – he managed to accomplish the task we set him quickly and with no fuss, which would give us confidence to go down this route again. I am sure [ecommerce] will remain a valuable tool in changing our sales emphasis.” – Andy Hepworth, Managing Director, Hepworth & Company Brewers Ltd.

What’s Next? Hepworth Brewery is still producing good sales which they are trying to build up with local radio advertising and a greater social media presence.

Are you looking to move your sales online? We can help with that, alongside market research, business models, investor readiness and book-keeping. Get in touch here.