These days words such as Craft, Small batch and Artisan have all become major buzz words for a vast array of products but particularly in the drinks industry. In addition to this customer have become more concerned about where they spend their money and keen on supporting local businesses particularly in recent months as small businesses continue to struggle against the endless economic woes that seem to be battering the global economy.
As a result of this there seems to be an ever-worsening creep of big brands masquerading their products as craft or artisan produced products. Particularly supermarkets, not content with monopolizing the sale of many products nationally and continually beating down suppliers to almost untenable margins, for example the borderline exploitative purchasing tactics employed against farmers for staples such as milk and eggs. Similarly, supermarket bosses have recently had to face MPs against allegations of profiteering with prices amongst the cost-of-living crisis.
Recently a number of supermarket brands and big-name brands often owned by industry behemoths such as Diageo have appeared to try and replicate the styles of craft products. Many of you may have seen the selection of “craft” beers rapidly expand with many new additions of brightly coloured and exotic sounding products, many of these are not bad in fairness however, it is their attempt to mimic the packing styles of craft products made famous buy BrewDog, Tiny Rebel and Cloudwater etc.
This is not the only example of this type of clever image cultivation, in the spirits world many brands portray themselves as artisanal craftsmen, when in reality they are solely a brand. Often this can be frustrating for local producers when competing. As many consumers are unaware of these differences, particularly when the last thing any given brand is going to mention is that their products are actually made 30 miles away by giant commercial distillery.
This is not to take away from the difficulties faced by many brands. To conceive, Market and sell any spirits brand is extremely difficult and not disingenuous when compared to big business in general, look at quintessentially British brands such as Bentley (who routinely market their “Britishness”) which has been owned and operated for many years by German Multinational Volkswagen.
However, we feel it is worth like many other brands consumers understanding and being made more aware of the added difficulties faced by producers, and the benefits for consumers of supporting local producers, who are continually battling to keep small batch artisan production alive.
In this we are not alone recently some of the biggest craft success stories have joined forces to promote their new campaign: “Actually Made In”.
In their own words: In an industry crowded with brands claiming authenticity, Manchester Gin, Tarquin’s Cornish Gin, Masons of Yorkshire and Brighton Gin are speaking out in support of genuine craftsmanship.
If you’re as proud as we are of our industry, and of how and where you make your spirits, then we invite you to show us your distillery, your people, your home.
The Actually Made In campaign is a refreshing initiative to highlight the value in genuine craftsmanship up and down the country, something that seems to be becoming increasingly rare across all industries.
As such here at Griffiths Brother we are super excited to announce that we to have become part of the Actually Made In Campaign and will proudly be displaying the badge below. Next time you are at your favourite farmers market or retailer look out for this badge and be sure that it really was made by skilled craftsmen who really do care about their products and your enjoyment of them.
