A Cornish gin distillery is plotting expansion after bouncing back from a coronavirus crisis when it lost half its business.
Tarquin’s Cornish Gin is working on opening a new shop and gin school in the Cornish seaside port of Padstow. The Southwestern Distillery, based in the hamlet of St Ervan, three miles from Padstow, has also doubled credit times for its smallest customers to 60 days, scrapped minimum order quantities, and is providing 2,000, free, hand sanitiser stations for small retailers.
It is also diversifying into rum production, but the biggest change at the firm, named as one of Britain’s fastest growing before the coronavirus pandemic struck, is that it has received a huge boost from online sales. It had no online market before the pandemic lockdown forced founder Tarquin Leadbetter to reassess the business’ model.
He said the company lost half its business overnight when hospitality and leisure sector customers were forced to close from March 20. But he said the firm bounced back and said: “We had never had an online shop before, but set that up and it’s been driving a significant part of our business.
“It has almost compensated for the loss of trade in the hospitality business. Gin has been one of the biggest online alcohol categories.”
He said one advantage of online selling was that sales did not have to be offered on credit. This payment certainty has allowed the business to be more flexible with its returning traditional customers.
When the lockdown was ordered by Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Tarquin’s furloughed about half of its 40-strong workforce under the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme.
Nearly all those staff have returned to work now, as the lockdown restrictions are eased and hospitality and tourism businesses are reopening.
Mr Leadbetter said job losses have been averted and he has even had to hire some temporary staff to send out individual bottles of gin as online sales boomed.
“A portion of online will continue,” Mr Leadbetter said.”But we now expect the reopening of shops and pubs to get us back in the swing of it. We are keen to encourage our traditional trade to bounce back.”
He added: “And we are now opening a new shop and gin school in Padstow. Right in the centre of the town.”
The distillery adapted its spirits production to make hand sanitiser in March, distributing a World Health Organisation recipe product – scented with gin botanicals juniper and orange - to the Cornwall community including the NHS, Devon and Cornwall Police, and local food banks.
“And we are now setting up 2,000 hand sanitizer stations, to every shop we can see,” Mr Leadbetter said. “They get two, free spray bottles and a refill pack.”
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The distillery is now diversifying into rum production with Twin Finm and a new gin designed to be served as a spritz, rather than with tonic, called Cornish Sunshine Blood Orange Gin.
“We have always wanted to make rum and this (lockdown period) has been an opportunity to get creative,” Mr Leadbetter said. “It came from long-term thinking, beyond the crisis. Something our sales team can sell alongside the gin, so we are less concentrated on one product.”
Tarquin’s was founded by Mr Leadbetter, a self-taught master distiller in 2012, as an independent, family-run distillery, championing traditional techniques alongside “progressively modern approaches”. It uses four copper pot stills to create the gin.
Before the coronavirus crisis, Tarquin’s was experiencing phenomenal growth, being listed at number 29 in the 23annual Sunday Times Virgin Atlantic Fast Track 100 league table.
“We are built for growth,” said Mr Leadbetter. “The 29 th fastest growing company in the UK. We expected to grow 20% to 30% year-on-year.
“We have not done that this year, but I’m an optimist and hopefully this will be just a blip.”
