Making craft beer easy to understand and order
Lion Australia’s UK arm, Lion Little World Beverages, is spearheading a movement to make it easier for outlets to deliver a desirable range of craft beer – with a particular focus on smaller, independent and standalone venues across the on-trade, hospitality, convenience and wholesale space from bottle shops and corner shops to local cafes and bars. In line with the digital revolution which has taken leap and bounds in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the business has invested in creating the UK’s first craft beer ordering and education platform, available via a brand new website and app.
“Through customer feedback, we know that craft beer tends to be a particularly complex part of operators beer offering and one that they often don’t have the time to learn about.” says Adrian Mooney, Marketing Director at Lion Little World – parent company of Fourpure Brewing Co and Magic Rock Brewing. “Lockdown has given us the chance to think about what operators need from us in such a fast-growing area of the trade and how we can support them to help get revenues flowing quickly now they’re re-opening. We’ve designed Lion Little World to allow customers to buy, sell and take advantage of educational content to demystify the sometimes mind-boggling world of craft.
Mooney continues: “The new app and website will initially launch by offering Lion Little World’s portfolio of over 30 craft beers from Fourpure, Magic Rock, Little Creatures and New Belgium Brewing. We’re also actively looking to grow the portfolio available and seeking partners to help expand and offer our customers the options of also easily restocking spirits, mixers, other beers and more.”
Lion Little World Beverages new industry leading app and website is designed to provide customers with a simplistic and seamless end-to-end experience. Not only does this provide ease of use to conveniently order through a user-friendly interface, the app and website will also offer educational content on the craft industry with training modules, creating an environment to best serve and deliver the experience. The platform’s AI also provides valuable insights to customers with recommendations of products that will be a good fit for their venue and clientele to help them boost their profit margin.
Gordon Treanor, Managing Director Europe at Lion Little World Beverages commented: “More than ever, consumers are looking for choice and craft beer offers the opportunity for people to try something local, different or new. However, historically craft beer businesses haven’t done a great job to help publicans and managers select the best craft beer range to increase revenue and venue profits. We’re aiming to help simplify things to make business easy across the trade.”
Treanor continues: “No one else has been able to work with those smaller bottle shops and convenience stores in the way that we’re newly able to. We’re now making it easier than ever for them to stock craft and effortlessly re-stock via the app. Our Australian cousins launched a similar platform called Malt Shovel and thanks to the use of an intuitive and simple customer interface, it has grown to over 1,000 customers using the app to manage orders weekly. Our customers operate their businesses in different ways and at different times of the day and week and this platform will newly allow them to navigate our range and explore new and interesting options in their own time. The app enables you to browse our range of pack and tap craft beers on your phone and place an order within seconds in just a few simple clicks. So, whether you’re on the move, behind the bar or in the cellar, you can order from our wide range of beers in no time… and in many cases, it will be delivered fresh from the brewery, the next day.”
The Lion Little World Beverages app and website launch takes place alongside a slightly updated name for the business, previously called Lion Little World Beverages, it’s new shortened moniker will be Lion Little World, in line with its overarching ethos to simplify and create accessibility. The Lion Little World platform will be available to on-trade customers from April 2021. More information for customers can be found at www.lionlittleworld.com.
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About Lion Little World:
Launched in 2020, Lion Little World is Lion Australia’s global craft arm and represents a strong portfolio of craft beer brands in the UK market, including Fourpure, Magic Rock, Australia’s Little Creatures and more recently US brand New Belgium Brewing.
This UK-based arm of Lion’s Australian brewing business is spearheaded by Managing Director of Lion Little World, Gordon Treanor. With more than 20 years of experience in beer, most recently heading up Lion’s craft portfolio in Australia, Treanor brings a wealth of knowledge from the dynamic Antipodean market that he hopes to translate into the rapidly growing UK craft sector.
London’s Bermondsey-based Fourpure and Huddersfield-based Magic Rock lead the charge with national distribution through leading retailers and a strong portfolio of core and seasonal products. The pair have been at the forefront of the craft beer scene since 2011 and 2013 respectively.
Press release from Storm Communications on behalf of Lion Little World
Contact: Georgia Bell, georgia.bell@stormcom.co.uk