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Cider Digest #1402
Subject: Cider Digest #1402, 16 August 2007
From: cider-request@talisman.com
Cider Digest #1402 16 August 2007
Forum for Discussion of Cider Issues
Dick Dunn, Digest Janitor
Contents:
Harrison tree size? (Dick Dunn)
Re: FW: understanding your business ("Mike Beck") (Mark Lattanzi)
RE: understanding your business ("McGonegal, Charles P")
Perry (poire) (Robert Lewis)
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Subject: Harrison tree size?
From: Dick Dunn <rcd@talisman.com>
Date: Sun, 12 Aug 2007 17:15:41 -0600
(Either I'm Google-impaired or this is just too hard to find.)
Anyone have reasonable experience with "Harrison" trees to know what sort
of size to expect. I just want a general idea like whether they tend to
be pretty big, average, kinda small...
- --
Dick Dunn rcd@talisman.com Hygiene, Colorado USA
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Subject: Re: FW: understanding your business ("Mike Beck")
From: Mark Lattanzi <mark@thealchemystudio.com>
Date: Sun, 12 Aug 2007 22:14:25 -0400
Hey Mike,
What I'm trying to get across is that if you are trying to build your
market share for a product that most people are either unfamiliar
with or familiar only with the most bland, non-artisinal variety, you
don't get there by trying to convince them that your artisinal,
unfamiliar and quite frankly challenging product is for them. You aim
at the core audience, the small minority, the foodies. They will, if
your product meets their criteria (artisinal, authentic, possessing
terroir), grant you their seal of approval and they will influence
those near the core but on the outer edge of it.
I'm not trying to get into a d*ck measuring contest here, but food
marketing is what I do for a living. It is tempting to try to make
the market for artisinal cider 'everyone who drinks wine' or 'people
who love Ciderjack' but that target is too broad and too soft. The
most successful food marketers do their work by aiming at the core
and letting the core embrace the produce and do the evangelizing of
the next ring out for you. The opportunity for artisinal cider at the
moment, IMHO, is beer geeks - the passionate 'Beer Advocates' who
seek out unique, quality hand-crafted brews. The ones who are seeking
to get beyond Sam Adams.
You only need to look as far as Dogfish Head to find a decent analogy
of this process. They market what they call 'extreme' beers, many of
which are quite challenging, yet their market share continues to
grow. Passionate evangelizers of their product constantly expose
friends and associates to their beers in the hopes of getting them to
see how great they can be. And slowly they win some - not all - of them over.
The question in my mind for artisinal cider makers is "who and where
are your passionate advocates, and how do you reach them?"
Mark
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Subject: RE: understanding your business
From: "McGonegal, Charles P" <Charles.McGonegal@uop.com>
Date: Mon, 13 Aug 2007 08:22:19 -0500
Responding to Dick Dunn in CD 1401 <- BTW, I love the creative
commentary that shows up in these simple one line attributions :-)
>And why would you even start if you don't have good reason and facts to
> support the belief that your product is marketable?
I've seen at least parts of a couple cidery business plans since I
started my own. And I've got a strong hunch that most small business
plans are works of rationalization, rather than reason. You start with
the 'belief that your product is marketable' and then find the facts and
reasons to bolster that. You talk yourself (and maybe investors) into
making the leap. It's very hard to write against ones own party-line
(that 'belief' thing) and dig out the facts and reasoning _against_
starting the business. I was (am) guilty of this, too. I thought I
knew the market I was getting into better than reality has revealed.
I've paid the price in slow growth and over-inventory of certain styles.
I'll bet I'm not alone.
>What is it that sets "the cider business" apart from any other business in
> an emerging market category? It's always risky to think your business is
> unique; that you can't apply lessons, information, analysis, and strategy
> from other categories of businesses.
I agree. In my case, trying to learn from other businesses leads me
away from the apples (full stop) cider that my orchard happens to
produce, and towards things with wider consumer appeal.
> Sure, but I wasn't talking about holding your ground in spite of obvious
> business failure. And in particular I was trying to single out the idea
> of moving toward "cool-aid" cider. That's a particularly bad idea for a
> young/small business, because it's all marketing, price-point, and shelf-
> space competition. It's a game for the big guys.
Backup to my first paragraph above and make that 'market_s_' : on-cidery
and off-cidery sales are entirely different businesses. I'll illustrate
below.
>> I do not consider broadening my portfolio of cider products - each
>> carefully choosen and crafted - to be chasing a market I'll never
>> catch.
> But how far down in price/quality are you prepared to move?
I've already moved on price further than I expected at the start. Roger
Mansfield, formerly of Traditional Co. told me that if you weren't
getting $15/gallon for you cider, then it wasn't worth doing. I'm below
that for draft cider in kegs - which isn't a big chunk of my business,
anyway. I have a second metric - earnings per gallon. And my lower
boundary on that metric means that the only way I can do draft cider in
kegs is to self-distribute. That also means the bottled version is only
available on-cidery. I've already demonstrated that I'm not good at
self-distributing. Which leaves me with the problem that I have a
product line that is popular with my consumers that I'm unwilling
(because of price-point/distribution realities & costs) to distribute.
<sigh> But I haven't (yet) axed the products - because it does so well
in the tasting room.
The answer to the second part of that question - quality - plays into a
topic that deserves its own thread. _I_ believe that I'm improving
quality each year. I'm getting better at controlling fermentation,
oxygen exposure during aging, and sulfite levels at bottling. So I
think I'm ending up with fewer/less faulty sensory characters. But my
best sellers are now tank conditioned (rather than bottle fermented),
backsweetened with concentrate (apple and other), sterile filtered and
sorbated. The apples (other than backsweetening) are grown on-site.
That won't change. Technology used to achieve shelf stabilty may.
I look at it as Quality:up, Identity:lateral change, Esthetics:more
common/less arty, Method:could be improved.
If you look at that description with an idea that Quality, Identity and
Esthetics are co-variates, then I bet you'll likely think I accepted a
quality drop, since my methods are less than 'pure' and my aim is for a
lower common denominator product. And I'll further bet that how you
think of those four variables is key to your opinion about BJCP
guidelines and competitions that use them. (If you do the competition
thing at all, that is.)
Aside: My current advice for prospective commercial cidermakers: 1) Plan
for an on-cidery tasting room as your major earnings source. 2) Perry
commands a better price and more interest [than cider] in off-cidery
markets.
Charles McGonegal
ÆppelTreow Winery
------------------------------
Subject: Perry (poire)
From: Robert Lewis <mazerrob@yahoo.com>
Date: Mon, 13 Aug 2007 18:48:59 -0700 (PDT)
Just an observation...
There is a fench Poire (that's their word for perry) by Granit and the
name Eric Bordelet on the bottle. I live in NYC, and i discovered a bottle
about 10 months ago. I brought it to the thanksgiving family gathering.
I was immediatly instructed to produce a case. (christmas gifts, etc)
What was surprising was how quickly it flew off the shelves. Now, i
have only had perry once before in my life, and am fairly certain it was
the same brand. It was crisp, nice, dry, no funky after taste, and the
slight pear essence, but not having other products, and never having made
it myself, i am limited in my ability to appraise it.
Given how quickly it disappeared, means, that either there is a market
for it, (at least in NYC), or it was a test run, and they imported a very
small amount, or, us dumb NY'ers just gobbled it up cause it was french,
different, and new to us. I know of three places that carried it, and i
was only able to find 2 more bottles.
i think the same argument could be made for a good honest, real vinted
cider. The hard part, i think would be getting it on the shelves.
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End of Cider Digest #1402
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