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It’s been a busy two months since I last got around to posting. Here are some updates and musing on what’s going on in my world…
First, beer, beer everywhere beer… Since founding Pelican Brands in June of 2009, I have had the great fortune of working with an incredible team of professionals (yes, even in beer we have them).. my long time colleague and partner, Don Hammond is President of Pelican brand and brings a wealth of experience in wine, spirits and beer both supplier side and the distributor side. Richard Cutler, ran Asia for Bass Brewer’s among other things and is a great international beer man. Mark Smith also from the UK is our marketing expert and was working in breweries since he turned 17! The team we have formed around this core group of partners is a mix of deep beer experience and capacity (excellent intellect combined with work ethic).
Pelican Brands
Our first major brand, Singha Beer from the Boon Rawd brewary is fantastic. I have been eating in Thai restaurants for 25 years and enjoyed Singha all along. The beer is perfectly matched to food. The brewery named us Brand Manager earlier in 2009 and in January 2010 we took over for all 50 U.S. states. Our mission? Nothing less than building on the great traditions of the Singha brand beyond the Thai channel. We are taking it mainstream. Anyone with doubts about this mission… I have a couple of questions for you. Do you have to eat at a Dutch restaurant to get a Heineken? A Belgium restaurant to get a Stella? A Mexcian restaurant to get a Corona? Well, you don’t have to go to a Thai restaurant anymore to get a Singha.
Iced Cold Singha Beer
Stay tuned on this, will keep updating on our progress. I can tell you we have already had a tremendous impact on the Singha business in the US. Compared to the imported beer market in general (down close to 10% for 2009), we end the year up significantly in the markets we took over last year. The reception at national accounts and among distributors has been tremendously positive as everyone in the trade looks for ways in which to grow their premium business in a tough economic environment. (I’ll have more on the beer environment in a later discussion). Very much looking forward to building on our initial momentum.
Soon, I’ll post about our trip to Thailand earlier this month.. it was fantastic both culturally and for business. It was great to get to know the larger Boon Rawd team, meet their distributors from around the world and to share time in their great country together. More later….
