Authenticity & the Craft of Brewing Beer
Every now and again you discover something well ahead of the general public that is worthy of further investigation. That is the key advantage of being a futurist – you get to spend a lot of your time just looking for signals of change. In this case it is the soon to be opened Barleycorn Brewers in Huntingdale, Victoria. A professional brewery for the public, Barleycorn Brewers provide the budding Brew-Master, home brewer and anyone else interested with the chance to create, can or bottle, and then drink their very own beer. The significance of this concept is the way it ties in with the emerging shifts in consumer sentiment that is seeing the rejection of ‘Brands’ and an increasing search for ‘authenticity’ which will require a major shift in the way products and services are pushed to the marketplace. It is something I have been suggesting to organisations for quite a while now
As a futurist I am seeing more consumers in a search for authenticity are looking for a complete understanding of the way in which a product is made, the inputs for the products, the processes used in the manufacture of those products (or delivery of services) and the values of the company providing them.
Arguably emerging from the awareness of the ‘slave labour’ and sweat shop practises of some companies in certain nations with a less established employment policies, authenticity is a move away from the mass produced one size fits all model, to one in which the ‘realness’ of a product is placed under the spotlight.
From clothing to pottery to artworks and music to food and beverages, companies that become aware of the consumer sentiment for authenticity tend to embrace accurate product labelling, policies around human rights and environmental issues and an awareness of the increasingly active involvement of consumers in terms of their product selection processes.
Barleycorn Brewers in Huntingdale is a fine example that allows the home brewer or interested person to control the entire process and it is hard to get much more authentic than allowing someone to handle the ingredients, select the recipe, brew and then drink their own beer, all with complete knowledge of the process, ingredients and taste and knowing that there are no preservatives or additives. Barleycorn are certainly not the first company to move into the space and they are unlikely to be the last. And looking at one of Australia’s fastest growing hobbies, it’s an approach likely to generate significant interest. Cheers!
Reckon it’s time we had a focus on getting things done and so I am declaring 2011 to be the ‘International Year of Solutions’. Seems to me that a lot of talk fests have been gobbling up the neuronal space for a few years now with insufficient ACTION being generated – just lot of promises…
Read More >Another stream of consciousness on the customer service theme that I come back to frequently. If you’ve ever received one of those scam emails from say ‘the past Minister of the Immigration and Business Department in Nigeria’ seeking your assistance at repatriating funds for which you’ll be paid a fortune, or those other scams claiming…
Read More >A shift is underway in television in Australia and it has nothing to do with digital versus analogue or the pay versus free shifts. Instead we are finally seeing the promise of TV as a medium of engagement. That promise sees a shift from the passive watching of TV (a ‘push’ approach) to the active…
Read More >That will be the question many will be asking leading up to the replay of the AFL Grand Final this Saturday between Collingwood and St Kilda. Regardless of the outcome, the AFL have already had their fairytale come true courtesy of a drawn game which is believed to have handed the AFL a bonus likely…
Read More >Being someone who questions the value of technology before climbing on board, I’ve been perhaps a tad slow to check out the Google Chrome web browser. Mistake! Given it’s speed and ease of use, the first couple of days have impressed me greatly and I’m mindful that I don’t have all the working of its…
Read More >In preparation for work with a couple of clients in the past fortnight I’ve had to throw myself into substantially more ‘tourist’ style activities than I have for quite some time in an attempt to answer the following question: ‘How do we get more people to come here?’ Yes there’s a lot of fun to…
Read More >Whilst the counting of votes is over the election is yet to be completed. Right now the discussions continue between the ‘three amigos’ who are clearly maximising their time in the spotlight, and the two leaders of the major parties. And whilst the media is fixated on who ought to be, deserves to be, should…
Read More >If you’ve seen any of the media campaigns for the Australian Federal Election you could have come to the following conclusions: Julia Gillard had a fixation with hand getsures; Tony Abbott had a fixation on Boats; and the Greens had the best Television Commercial not only of this campaign but of any other they’ve had…
Read More >If you’ve been following any of the mainstream media election coverage here in Australia (stuff in the usual papers, radio and TV programs) you’ve no doubt got a good understanding of what is going to happen on election day. The mainstream media synopsis thus far is that a) Julia Gillard got off to a good…
Read More >This great little cartoon/graphic says it all and although looking at the subject of Universities, there is much that we can all learn Here’s the Graphic. If your website spends all its time talking about you, and no time talking about the customer, how do you think your customers (and prospective customers) feel? I…
Read More >