The Food and Drink iNet helps local brewers find a route to Asian markets

The University of Nottingham is working with 20 micro-brewers across the East Midlands on a ‘Routes to Market’ project to help them develop bottled conditioned beers that can be sold to China and South East Asia.

Experts from the brewing science department of The University of Nottingham have combined with the Food and Drink iNet (Innovation Network) to help microbrewers in the region to develop stable, bottled conditioned beers that are suitable for export.

In 2004, China overtook the USA to become the world’s largest beer market. The competition is growing increasingly fierce amongst the main brewers, but there are niche markets for microbrewers.

The regulations regarding beer duty mean that if brewers are making under a certain volume of beer, the rate of duty decreases. This has resulted in an increase in a seven per cent per annum increase in the number of craft brewers in the UK, a significant proportion of whom are based in the Midlands.

However, with bottle conditioned beers, the final conditioning of the beer takes place in the bottle, which means that the quality can often vary considerably.

The team from the university is working with the micro-brewers to increase their control of the process to achieve more consistency in the fully conditioned beers which will lead to higher quality.

The project involves surveying all of the existing bottle conditioned beers produced by the micro-brewers and testing them for consistency, measuring qualities such as alcohol by volume, CO2, microbial stability and shelf life.

Different strains of wet and dry active yeasts are also being tested on the beers, to determine which offers the most consistent results. In addition, the team will examine all of the processes the brewers are using to make their beers to identify and share best practice.

The Lincoln Green Brewing Company, based in Hucknall, Notts, is one of the businesses taking part in the Routes to Market project.

Anthony Hughes, managing director of the company, said: “The Routes to Market initiative came at just the right time for us, as we had just started looking at bottling with a view to exporting in the future.

“As a result of the University’s support, we have been reseeding the beer with an additional yeast strain, to stabilise the beer. An expert from the University even came out to help us reseed the first batch of beer so that we could see how it should be done.”

Alongside the work being undertaken on the development of the bottled conditioned beers, the University’s Asia Business Centre will be providing a detailed analysis of the markets for premium beers in China, Hong Kong and the wider South East Asia region.

The university will also provide microbrewers with guidelines on the export process and routes to market for bottled conditioned beers.

Speaking about the Routes to Market programme, Dr Jerry Avis, who is managing the project, said: “The microbrewers we are working with are extremely enthusiastic about the Routes to Market programme. They recognise that we are able to help them improve the consistency of their products, reduce their costs and find new, innovative ways of offering their products to customers.”

Mike Carr, director of business engagement at The University of Nottingham, said: “With the technical expertise we have in the brewing sector and our unrivalled links and knowledge of China and South East Asia, we really can help to give microbrewers in the Midlands a massive competitive advantage when it comes to developing and marketing their products for consumers in the Far East.

“This is one example of the way in which we can help small and medium sized businesses in the East Midlands, and we would be very interested to hear from businesses in other sectors who feel that they can benefit from working with experts at the University top develop their products and find new markets.”

Part-funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), the Food and Drink iNet provided a grant of £19,750 for the Routes to Market project.

Based at Southglade Food Park, Nottingham, the iNet co-ordinates innovation support for businesses, universities and individuals working in the food and drink sector in the East Midlands with advisors working across the East Midlands region. It is managed by a consortium, led by The Food and Drink Forum and including Nottingham Trent University, the University of Lincoln, and The University of Nottingham.

Food and Drink iNet director Richard Worrall said: “The East Midlands has a successful and developing craft brewing sector, and the Food and Drink iNet is keen to support brewers on planning their commercial journey to opening up new markets, which includes strategic planning as well as the technical/scientific issues.

"There is a growing appetite for prestige ales in areas like China and South East Asia, and we hope this project that we are funding will help East Midlands brewers to compete more effectively in this highly competitive market by not only tackling the product and packaging issues, but also considering market understanding and distribution with the support of UKTI.”

For more information about the Food and Drink iNet visit www.foodanddrink-inet.org.uk

Press release issued by Nottingham PR company Perfect 10 PR www.perfect10pr.co.uk in collaboration with the University of Nottingham

Photo caption clockwise from top, Jerry Avis, the University of Nottingham, Pat Brearly, Tollgate Brewery (Derbyshire), Alastair Chapman, Langton Brewery (Leicestershire), Paul (Nobby) Mulliner, Nobby’s Brewery (Northamptonshire), Steve Doane, Sail Brewery (Lincolnshire), Anthony Hughes, Lincoln Green Brewery (Nottinghamshire) and Jo Murphy, Food & Drink iNet.

Food and Drink iNet (Innovation Network) looks into disappearing beer casks problem

The East Midlands microbrewery industry is feeling the cost, as thousands of pounds worth of beer casks go missing every year. Nationally, the British Beer and Pub Association estimates the problem costs the UK brewing industry £50 million annually.

Now researchers at The University of Nottingham are stepping in to help microbrewers in the region by trying to discover the best way to keep track of the casks after being invited to study the problem by the Food and Drink iNet (Innovation Network).

The university’s Food and Biofuel Innovation Centre has been commissioned by the iNet to team up with the Derbyshire Brewers’ Collective under the iNet’s Collaborate to Innovate project, which brings together academic experts and industry to solve specific challenges in the food sector.

The university will liaise with the collective in a bid to pinpoint the best approaches for tracking devices for the casks and ways of raising awareness about the problem in the hope that it will save the microbrewery industry thousands of pounds in the future.

Breweries are believed to lose up to 10% of casks per year.

“Some casks can be stolen but more than likely they are lost – just left in yards, pubs and units, and not returned to their rightful owners. They could be there for ages,” said John Baldock, chairman of the Derbyshire Brewers’ Collective and a director at Derventio Brewery near Ashbourne.

“If you pay £74 to buy a cask and it gets left in someone’s back yard, you can’t use. It’s dead money. It’s not working for your brewery. A lot of breweries rent casks, but if these casks go missing then we are paying rent per month for casks that we can’t use. The upshot is that there are a lot of disgruntled small brewers who haven’t got their own casks in their own yards. A lot of it is down to the fact that many wholesalers, landlords and draymen just aren’t aware of the cost to a brewery of not returning casks.”

The major breweries barcode their casks to keep track of them. But even then, a proportion goes missing.

The University of Nottingham will be working with the Derbyshire Brewers’ Collective – made up of 16 breweries in the county - to come up with cost-effective ideas to help solve the problem.

Food and Drink iNet director, Richard Worrall, said: “The iNet is committed to bringing academics and businesses together so that they can work collectively to solve common problems. When we heard how much money was being lost as a result of disappearing beer casks we wanted to do something to help find a solution which will benefit the microbrewery industry.”

The commission by the iNet is one of the first pieces of research work gained by the new Food and Biofuel Innovation Centre, based at The University of Nottingham’s Sutton Bonington site. The centre is a combination of three interconnected areas – one for brewing science, one for food processing and one for bioenergy production. Each area has the plant and equipment to carry out research, development and teaching.

“We are hoping to provide a range of solutions that will help microbrewers increase their profitability because the loss of casks, whether they are rented or owned by the microbrewers, does represent a loss of profit,” said Dr Jerry Avis, project manager at the Food and Biofuel Innovation Centre.

“A small brewer has to have roughly five times the number of casks he’s going to fill at any one time. If we can help reduce that ratio it’s a big improvement.”

The Food and Drink iNet, which is funded by East Midlands Development Agency (emda) and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), is one of four regional iNets developed to link academic and private sector expertise and knowledge with local food and drink business innovation needs.

The Food and Drink iNet aims to build on the tradition of innovation in the food and drink industry in the region by helping to create opportunities to develop knowledge and skills, and to help research, develop and implement new products, markets, services and processes. It is managed by a consortium, led by the Food and Drink Forum and including Food Processing Faraday, Nottingham Trent University, the University of Lincoln, and the University of Nottingham. For more information visit www.eminnovation.org.uk/food

For more information please contact the Food and Drink iNet on info@foodanddrink-inet.org.uk

Nottingham PR consultant Perfect 10 PR www.perfect10pr.co.uk