A good caseexample from 2020 is that of Fary Lochan:
Fary Lochan is a Danish distillery making high-quality single malt whiskies. Since their establishment in 2009, the company has been selling their alcoholic drinks directly from their distillery, or via selected off-licenses and stores. The lockdown caused by COVID-19 and the ensuing travel restrictions and social distancing, meant that their entire business model had collapsed and was no longer viable in 2020. They needed to find alternative sales channels or models quickly.
They contacted the Enterprise Europe Network and were assessed to fit the bill for Innovation Health Check services. The IHC service helped the company to consider new, innovative sales measures and after some deliberation, they decided to go ahead with using online meeting tools to introduce people to their whisky in an online whisky tasting.
Fary Lochan produced a number of small bottles of whisky in 50ml sizes, with all their different blends of whisky, and organised a testing session, using experts from whisky associations to guide potential clients through the tasting, explaining the different tastes. They needed 100 participants to break even, and hoped for 200 people interested in taking part. But orders kept on coming in, and they kept on having to make new tasting samples to send out. In the end, they had to stop at 730 participants, but only because the online meeting tool could not support more participants.
The event was a huge success and Fary Lochan received their record sales in 2020, reaching out to a new global audience.
As the effects of the corona pandemic are still affecting SMEs, The Danish network will continue to offer the IHC as a means to investigate new markets, business models and sales channels in 2021. There are currently more than a handful new companies in discussion with the Danish EIMC team regarding these services.
