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Sovereign transition to remote working permanently

David Davies is the Founder and MD of Sovereign Beverage Company www.sovbev.com, the UK’s leading exporter of premium beverages. After a successful transition to remote working during COVID, David has recently relinquished the company offices in favour of permanent home working for his team. Here, he shares advice on what other founders need to consider before they implement remote working permanently.

It’s hard to believe that just over two years ago, much of Britain’s workforce found itself working from home overnight. The enforced lockdowns created an historic shift for many businesses, and while home working used to be seen as a perk, it has now become the norm. Surveys show that almost half of the professional workforce are interested in remote working becoming a permanent fixture, with respondents giving reasons such as saving time, saving money, and increased flexibility.

Forward-thinking companies are taking note and offering remote working, with a survey from the Institute of Directors finding that 79% of leaders intend to implement remote working in the long term. Remote working has been found to reduce rates of burnout, and increase employee well-being, productivity, engagement, and feelings of inclusion.

So how can SMEs successfully make the transition to remote working, and what are some of the elements leaders need to consider before deciding if it’s the right decision for their business?

1. Develop your remote working policies and onboard the team fully

Having clear guidelines laid out in an easily accessible policy will help to prevent any confusion for your team. Things to consider include working hours, virtual meeting structure, methods of communication, reporting, device security, and home-working environment. Keep them fluid, at least initially, and take the team through a session together to train them in the new guidelines.

2. Change your recruitment process

This is particularly important when recruiting and onboarding a new starter. You might initially conduct interviews over video call, but an in-person second interview and new starter meeting will assist the onboarding process and help to build that relationship. Encourage the existing team to schedule 1:1 calls to meet and get to know the new starter as well. Look at implementing a buddy system, pairing a new starter with a more experienced colleague to help guide through their induction period.  Check in with them daily at first to ensure they are feeling welcome and supported.

3. Develop social interaction

Allowing the team to have informal channels of communication will help to replace the ‘water cooler’ chat that will be missing from a remote working environment. It’s also useful to build in catch up time to your regular calls, taking ten minutes at the start of the week to find out how the team’s weekends were. You can also plan virtual events such as coffee breaks and after work drinks (with favoured beverages provided by the company in advance) which will help to bond the team and increase a sense of belonging. We’ve held quizzes, bingo nights, and Christmas drinks over video conferencing with great success.

4. Reassess your tech stack

Having several different communications options is key, and it’s worth having both video conferencing and instant messaging available, as well as email. Allowing the team to have informal channels of communication will help to replace the ‘water cooler’ chat that will be missing from a remote working environment. Do you have a ‘one-stop-shop’ for knowledge sharing, document storage, and project management that all team members can access, so that no-one has to waste time waiting for information? What software does the team need to be able to be most efficient?

5. Review each home working environment

Particularly important when making the change from office working to remote working. Does each member of your team have the space and equipment they need to work productively? What do they need to put in place to make this happen? Things to consider include ergonomic desks and chairs, high-speed internet, noise-cancelling headsets, as well as possible alternatives if their home environment isn’t suitable for home working. Transitioning your team to remote working may come with an investment into their environment.

6. Have in-person events where possible

While a full-time office environment may no longer be suitable for your business, keeping some in person meetings and events is great for maintaining employee connection and morale. You may find it useful to have a once-a-month team meeting to bring everyone together at a venue, or biannual team building and social events where the objective is fun, not work.

7. Be flexible

When an employee transitions from office-based to home-based, it’s important to be flexible about the environment they are now in. While it’s reasonable to expect your team members to create a dedicated workspace and a distraction-free setting, it should be remembered that the building they are in is a home first and foremost – there may be background noises that you wouldn’t normally find in an office!

 

Source:  https://wearethecity.com/how-small-businesses-can-successfully-transition-to-remote-working/

Meet David Davies, Founder of Sovereign Beverage Company

Sovereign Beverage Company is the UK’s leading exporter of premium beverages. We work with UK-based suppliers to give them a global presence, managing their export operations for them and securing listings with our customers overseas.

We make export simple by offering a turnkey solution to our suppliers, and by giving our customers an export-complaint, reliable supply of premium products, at brewery-direct prices.

We currently work with a portfolio of over 130 products from seven carefully selected suppliers, all of whom are UK beverage producers including Greene King, Saltaire Brewery, Thatchers Cider, Robinsons Brewery, Carlsberg-Marstons Brewing Company, Innis & Gunn, and Westons Cider.

We have customers in over 60 countries, ranging from retailers, distributors, and wholesalers, both on- and off-trade. We have over 120 customers globally, including brands such as Carrefour, 7-11, Consum, and Walmart.

How did you come up with the idea for the company?

I knew from a very young age I wanted to be an entrepreneur. My Dad owned businesses, and at only nine years old I was working for him during the school holidays, developing and honing my work ethic, and becoming familiar with the logistics industry. I studied business and finance at university, before following my Dad into the supply chain business within the beverage industry.

Throughout my career, my goal was always to gain experience and then adopt it to the right business idea when it came along. I was constantly researching different business ideas, looking for a good fit, and as part of that research I read Robert Craven’s ‘Kick-Start Your Business’ – that sparked my first ‘commandments’ of business.

I listed out my 10 commandments, and decided that any business I was going to establish would have to fulfill most, if not all of those commandments.

It was in 2006, when I was working as an Account Director and was meeting with a brewery that an offhand conversation led to the birth of Sovereign Beverage Company. I realised that the brewery in question had an untapped route for sales in the form of global export – but had no infrastructure and the risk was too high for them to take in house.

After talking to many breweries and importers, I saw that there was a huge gap between product availability and global demand, as the breweries lacked the supply chain knowledge, time and other resources to manage their own export.

It was in 2008 that we launched Sovereign Beverage Company, working with leading British beverage suppliers such as Marstons Brewery and Batemans from day one. Since then, we have increased our annual sales by almost 10,000% (in litres sold), expanded to a full-time team of nine, and we’ve become the UK’s leading exporter of premium beverages, with over 10 million pints sold annually worldwide in the year 2021.

How has the company evolved during the pandemic?

The pandemic saw huge changes for Sovereign Beverage Company, and we were fortunate to come out of that very challenging period with growth both of our team and revenue.

In 2020, we very quickly adapted to a remote working environment. Our already-established cloud-based system enabled the team to work from home without interruption to their usual tasks, and as a team, we were able to come together using the various e-networking tools at our disposal.

We made the decision not to furlough any of the team, instead choosing to maintain consistency of relationships and to continue the team building and development we had started before the pandemic. We were able to recruit another Export Account Manager into the sales team, and increase the number of markets we operate in.

However, as we know, COVID-19 saw a global shut down – freight was stopped, breweries were working on a hugely reduced capacity with export operations taking a backseat, and customers were prevented from importing goods due to their own local restrictions – for instance, South Africa and Thailand temporarily banned the sale of alcohol, Brazil and much of the EU was placed under curfew, restaurants were closed globally and when they eventually reopened, it was with much lower capacity – all of which negatively affected our customers’ sales, which in turn reduced their export needs with us.

These restrictions and challenges did not improve in 2021 and were in fact exacerbated by the Suez Canal obstruction, which had a very negative impact on freight. There were still global vessel and container shortages, and production costs continued to rise. However, 2021 was our best year to date despite these difficulties.

The team’s productivity only improved with the onset of working from home, which we have recently decided to make a permanent thing. Through a combination of continued efforts and the signing of an excellent product (Trooper beer), we were able to ‘unlock’ South America. This is a largely untapped market due to the complexity of product registration,

and so it became a key, lucrative market. We’ve developed new, exciting ways of supporting our existing customers, allowing us to increase their product ranges and become more involved with the marketing process for the end purchaser. We’ve also made enormous strides in securing exclusive distributions with key suppliers.

What can we hope to see from Sovereign Beverage Company in the future?

A lot!

We currently sell 55,000 Hectolitres (HL) of product annually, and our goal is to increase that to 100,000HL by 2024. We’re going to drive that through our existing suppliers, and bring on some new suppliers in key categories. We are excited to keep developing partnerships with the UKs leading beverage brands.

We also intend to expand our product categories, potentially looking at RTDs and low/no-alcohol brands. The growth of low/no products is huge, and we intend to support our customers with the development of this category.

We are also looking at expanding our product line, potentially looking at global products rather than UK products only. We will use our model, processes, and systems to feed those into our current customer base.

Finally, we will continue with the growth of the team, recruiting annually, and continuing to invest in ongoing training and development.

Source: TechRound https://techround.co.uk/interviews/david-davies-sbc/

 

Sovereign Beverage Company supports Ukraine with much needed humanitarian aid

Sovereign Beverage Company along with its supply partners is providing a support package worth £17,000 for their retail customer in Ukraine. 

 

Sovereign Beverage Company has historically counted Ukraine as their largest export market, with their UK premium beer and ciders growing in popularity and sales year on year. 

 

The Ukrainian supermarket chain SILPO, the second largest in the country is a longstanding customer of Sovereign, and it has reached out looking for support with donations of long life food and drinks. 

 

David Davies, Founder, and MD of Sovereign Beverage Company said: “All pending deals and future deals were cancelled overnight. Ukraine has been placed under martial law, so international banking has been stopped as well as the sale of non-essential items like alcohol. This restriction on trade has had a big financial impact on SILPO. We’ve been looking for ways we can support them, and are pleased to share that we have put a package together with the help of our supply partners, here in the UK”.

 

Sovereign has spearheaded the campaign, with the sales team reaching out to their supply partners and industry colleagues to make donations for products that Ukraine sorely needs. Sovereign has sponsored the first pallet of soft drinks, with AG Barr, Bibendum Wines, Britivic, Carlsberg-Marstons Brewing Company, Greene King, Innis & Gunn, Robinsons Brewery, and Westons Cider each stepping forward to sponsor a pallet, along with a further donor who wishes to remain anonymous. 

 

The 10 pallets are being shipped this month to SILPO, where the donated stock will enable SILPO to provide support for the front line which includes the army and doctors defending their independence.

 

Vladyslav Bolva, Import Manager for Fozzy Group, the parent company for SILPO said: “We want to give as much help as we can to our citizens and the army, so the humanitarian aid that is being offered by Sovereign Beverage Company is much appreciated. Though our shelves are empty, we are keeping our stores open where possible, and this donation of soft drinks will help immensely.” 

 

David concluded with: “We are pleased to be able to help the people of Ukraine through our support of SILPO, and we are grateful to all of the fantastic brands who have come on board to donate a pallet. We will continue to explore options for further support as the crisis continues, and our thoughts are with everyone caught up in this atrocity.”

Ukraine and Russia Update – Export difficulties

In 2019, UK exports to the Ukraine totalled £7.35million, and were estimated to be in excess of £7.5million in 2021. Though not a significant trade partner for the UK (accounting for only 0.1% of total trade), Ukraine plays a vital part in many UK export agreements.

Both Russia and Ukraine are a key export market for alcoholic beverages, in particular beer and cider. Sovereign Beverage Company Ltd, www.sovbev.com the UK’s leading exporter of premium beverages, counted the Ukraine as their largest export market last year, exporting premium British brands such as Robinsons Brewery, Westons Cider and Saltaire Brewery.

Due to the Russian invasion, Ukraine has been placed under restrictions, one of which includes banning the sale of all alcohol in order to prioritise essential items. This has resulted in an immediate cancellation of all pending orders, as well as a complete review of forecasted sales for 2022.

A further difficulty for all businesses exporting to Ukraine is that martial law was imposed from 24th February 2022 for a 30-day period. Under martial law, the National Bank of Ukraine has imposed a ban on transferring payments abroad for all but critical imports. The decision will be reviewed at the end of March, and it is anticipated that the limitation will be continued.

This restriction means that suppliers with outstanding invoices can’t be paid. For companies like Sovereign Beverage Company who have extended credit to their Ukrainian customers, this will result in a potential default in payment, leaving them liable with their insurers for a % of the total invoice.

This article was first published on TechRound

SBC wins exclusive global export agreement with Thatchers Cider

This month, Sovereign Beverage Company and Thatchers Cider have confirmed their agreement, giving the Blackburn-based premium beverage exporter exclusivity on the global distribution of Thatchers Cider products.

 

Thatchers Cider, the UK’s leading independent cider producer is the first supply partner to be brought on board by Sovereign since Brexit, where it joins a raft of well-known premium British beverage brands including Greene King, Robinsons Brewery (Trooper by Iron Maiden), and Carlsberg Marstons.

 

Using their 15 years of expertise, Sovereign will be driving the global distribution of Thatchers’ export portfolio, including the flagship ‘Thatchers Gold’ in both 500ml bottles and cans.

 

Commenting on the agreement, Thatchers’ sales director Chris Milton said: “We’ve been successfully exporting our products abroad since 2008 and have a strong global fanbase in over 20 countries. We’ve taken the decision to work with Sovereign to further build our brand internationally, in particular in North & South America where we currently have no presence.” 

 

First launched in 1904, Thatchers Cider has been producing authentic Somerset cider at Myrtle Farm for over 115 years. The company has been in the Thatchers family for four generations and is now under the stewardship of Martin Thatcher.

 

David Davies, Founder, and MD of Sovereign Beverage Company said: “We’re delighted to be adding Thatchers Cider to our portfolio of premium brands. The UK is a world leader in cider production and the prospect of increasing global awareness of this heritage through the distribution of Thatchers Cider is an exciting one.”

 

“We are pleased to share that we have already hit the ground running with Thatchers Gold now available in Italy.”

Robinsons scoops 5 more awards at brewing “Oscars”

Stockport-based Robinsons Brewery are proud to announce they have been presented 5 prestigious accolades at the International Brewing and Cider Awards 2021 – adding to their collection of almost 150 awards.  Trooper, Trooper IPA, Hopnik Citra IPA, Dizzy Blonde and Old Tom all picked up awards.

The competition, which dates back to 1886, has a long history of championing the world’s best brewers and cider-makers, and the competition’s unique approach to the judging process sets it apart from other awards, earning it the reputation as the ‘Oscars of the brewing and cider world’.

You can find out more here.

Saltaire Triple Choc in the Awards Again

Saltaire Brewery have been picking up award after award again.  Saltaire love creating high quality beers with real character that are enjoyed around the world. In 2021, Triple Choc has done it again, being awarded gold medal and overall country winner in the flavoured chocolate and coffee category.  Onwards to the world finals which is being announced later this month. Read the full results from the 2021 awards here.

On top of The World Beer Awards win, they’ve picked up multiple awards at the SIBA North East Regional awards.
Take a look at this year’s full results.

As sole export partner to Saltaire Brewery, Sovereign Beverage Company can help you import Saltaire’s beers all over the world.  Get in touch for more information or browse their range here.

Hobgoblin Range Picks Up 4 Awards

Our legendary, award-winning Hobgoblin beer range has once again taken podium places in the World Beer Awards! 4 awards were awarded to Carlsberg Marston’s Brewing Company brands, including Hobgoblin and Wainwright.  A quick look at the Carlsberg Marston’s Brewing Company unrivalled portfolio of brands shows us that we have a beer for every occasion. The success in the 2021 World Beer Awards reminds us to celebrate our diversity and our fantastic brews.

Hobgoblin IPA was crowned ‘Country Winner’ in the ‘English Style IPA’ category, while Hobgoblin Ruby and Hobgoblin Gold picked up a silver and bronze medal in their categories. In the ‘Golden Ales’ category, Wainwright was also a silver medal winner.

As the ‘Country Winner’, Hobgoblin IPA will now have the chance to become the World’s Best in its style, and if successful, in its category. We’ll find out if it takes the top spot in September.

Joanne Wyke, brand manager, Hobgoblin and Wychwood Brewery, said: “We’re extremely excited to hear that our Hobgoblin beers have been recognised at this year’s World Beer Awards. To receive such prestigious awards, judged by some of the most respected people in our industry, is a testament to the skills and efforts of our fantastic brewing team at Wychwood and we couldn’t be prouder.”

About the World Beer Awards

The World Beer Awards are the global awards selecting the very best in all internationally recognised styles, award and promote the world’s best beers to consumers and trade across the globe. Read more about the World Beer Awards here: https://www.worldbeerawards.com/.

 

Browse the export Wychwood Range here.

ICE BREAKER PALE ALE NOW AVAILABLE IN EXPORT

After a very positive into Greene King pubs around the UK, this unfiltered Pale Ale developed and crafted by apprentice brewers at Greene King is set be enjoyed the all the world. Now available in 330ml Bottle and 30L Keg, Sovereign are excited to offer this 4.5% unfiltered pale ale which is bursting with fruit hop flavour. Brewed using Simcoe and Citra hops, Ice Breaker is a bold Pale Ale that is bursting with guava and passion fruit and big citrus flavours.

WYCHWOOD’S EXCITING RE-BRAND HAS BEGUN

Wychwood Brewery are in the middle of an exciting re-brand of their entire range. The brewery’s award winning portfolio, that includes the UK’s 3rd most popular premium bottled ale is being transformed in an effort to re-position the range as less of a seasonal Halloween beer to something more mainstream. So far Gold, Ruby, IPA and King Goblin have had the re-brand treatment with their other brands all in the pipeline.

Brand manager Jo Wyke explained: “This is a bold change for Hobgoblin….we know how much it is celebrated as the leader of the pack and its legacy among great British beers, so we wanted to make sure we tested the new look, researched and tested again, ensuring we kept the character that everyone expects from Hobgoblin.”

ROBINSONS WIN 18 PRESTIGIOUS BEER AWARDS IN 2019

2019 has been a rewarding year for Stockport based family brewers, Robinsons, who have secured no less than 18 respected awards for the quality of their bottled beers. 10 Robinsons’ beers were recognised amongst the best beers in the world at the 2019 Global Beer Masters, where beers were blind judged purely on taste by the finest palates in the world; a panel of beer experts, sommeliers and senior buyers. Beardo, Hopnik Citra IPA, Old Tom, Mojo, One Eye’d Jack, and Trooper (brewed in collaboration with Iron Maiden) all received Bronze medals while Unicorn Copper Ale (first brewed in 1896), Kettlehead Choc Stout, Light Brigade (brewed with Iron Maiden and Help for Heroes), and Mashout Pale Ale all scooped silver.

The 180-year-old brewers also performed well in the 2019 World Beer Awards; with Old Tom (first brewed in 1899) being crowned UK Country Winner (category Dark Beer, Barley Wine) alongside newcomer Beardo, UK Country Winner (category IPA, American Style) out of over 3,500 entries from more than 50 countries.

Trooper Beer with limited edition, collectible bottle caps available now

To celebrate each of Iron Maiden’s studio album, Trooper beer will be produced with two million collectible bottle caps available globally wherever Trooper beer is sold — but fans will have to be quick off the mark, as some cap designs are more difficult to find than others. Every album from “Iron Maiden” to “The Book of Souls” is available as is a collector frame to look after them.

Just another way to engage with Iron Maiden fans in your market. Get in touch to import Trooper into your country.

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