Out of favour(ly)

Like most people I receive far too many emails, and this might be because I have two Yahoo accounts, plus a Gmail one. I also have my own work email account, which is strictly for business.  Unfortunately, I’m not a person who keeps on top of his inbox, despite the best of intentions, although for professional reasons, my work emails are kept right up to date. The other day, I noticed an email from Beer 52, the long-established beer subscription service, advising me that Flavourly, another beer delivery organisation, had ceased trading after entering into administration earlier in October.   

 

Slightly puzzled that Beer 52 had my email address, I remembered that I have dealt with this beer subscription service, at some time in the past. Working on the basis that one person’s misfortune is another’s business opportunity, Beer 52 appear to be approaching former Flavourly customers, in a quite unashamed grab for business. This was evident from the email, below, which went on to say. “Beer 52 was approached to see if they could help Flavourly members continue to discover great beer. and were delighted to share the following service update."

 

“As a former Flavourly customer, you have earned a free case of craft beer (worth £27)! Click below and use your personal code and we'll send an 8-pack of craft beer from our latest theme, award-winning Ferment magazine and a couple of snacks.” It sounds tempting, or perhaps not, although there is no obligation to continue with your subscription because that is what you are signing up to, should you decide to take-up their offer. Beer 52 confirm this by saying, “Of course, you’re free to take the case and run. But if you decide to continue your monthly beer, drop, we’ll send you a new themed box every month, from the haziest NEIPAs to the crispest pilsners. No minimum commitment, cancel anytime.”

I have used several beer subscription services in the past, but it’s worth taking a closer look at Flavourly, not just because they are in the news at the moment, but because they operated a rather different business model to other beer providers. This involved partnering with selected craft-beer breweries, commissioning one-off “specials” or “collaboration beers”, and then guaranteeing to buy these beers in large volumes. The beers were then offered to Flavourly’s customers as exclusives.

This provided a certain volume for the breweries concerned, alongside the bonus of a firm commitment from Flavourly to take the entire batch. The aim was to boost efficiency, attract investment in new equipment, and negotiate better rates on ingredients with their suppliers.

Therefore, unlike certain other online beer retailers, Flavourly were not a subscription service, and with nothing to sign up to, customers could just order, as and when they pleased. Having said that, the company did tend to pester you with emails, highlighting their latest offers, but with no obligation to buy, you could just delete these messages. The beers that the company sold were packaged solely in the 330ml can format, which must have helped streamline their mail order despatch, business model.

This did at least mean that potential subscribers had an inkling of the types and styles of the beers they would be buying - an improvement on the “traditional” beer subscription services, where the provider rather than the customer, chooses the beers supplied. From my point of view, collaboration brews were alright for those wanting to tick beers on “Untappd,” but perhaps not for those who preferred something more permanent rather than “one-offs.”

Flavourly was set up by Ryan O’Rorke in 2012, following an appearance on Dragons’ Den, where he was offered investment by all five dragons. He eventually accepted a joint bid from Piers Linney and Peter Jones for £75,000 in return for a 20% stake. Over the previous two years, Flavourly had generated £600,000 in revenues, had shipped more than 500,000 products to its 10,000 subscribers, and was forecasting a tenfold increase in sales.

Flavourly also raised cash through several crowdfunding exercises, but In 2017 it was sold to Drinkshare Holdings for £118,000, a company which Mr O’Rorke was a director of. At the time of the fund-raising Flavourly was touted as having a value of £1.2m, so somewhere along the line the company decreased quite dramatically in value, and investors who backed the original startup were reputedly left out of pocket. I’m not sure how you value a company whose only assets are the stock it is currently sitting on, plus possible warehousing and distribution space. The latter two can be contracted out, so in the end it boils down to the offers that Flavourly had in which to tempt the customer. I’m beginning to think that apart from the possible novelty value, the brands plus types of beer the company were offering, had slowly stated to lose their appeal.  This is certainly what happened in my case.

At the beginning of March 2022, I ordered myself a mixed case of 48 cans of “craft beer” from Flavourly. My motives in buying this rather large case were mixed but were underscored by a desire to have a selection of different beers at home, to choose from. I’m not sure whether this actually worked, as some of the beers were, quite frankly, disappointing. You could argue that with such a large selection to choose from, there are bound to be a few duds, and you would be right in thinking this. However, at the other end of the spectrum you might expect there to be a few stunners, but there wasn’t any, although there was a few worthy of seeking out again.

I worked out that there were 22 different brews, which suggested that whilst there were two cans of most of the beers, there must have been three of some of them. At the end of the day, you win some, you lose others, and on the plus side I had the chance to enjoy some interesting beers. The flip side is the continual search for the new and the original does, at times, invoke a deep-seated sense of longing for the comfort and sense of security that goes with the familiar. In which case, make mine a pint of Harvey’s Sussex Best!

In summary, I feel the points I have raised above must have at least been partly to blame for the fall in valuation of Flavourly as a company, and the decision to put the business into administration. but where this leaves the breweries commissioned to produce the specials and collaborative beers, is any one’s guess. The concept behind Flavourly remains a bold one, and an interesting one too. The reasons for its failure are varied, but in the end probably boil down to the fickleness of the great British public.

Whether this could have been foreseen, is a question for another day, but one thing’s for sure, I won’t be taking Beer 52 up on their offer, as eight cans of supposedly “free beer,” just aren’t worth the hassle of cancelling my subscription further down the line.