Raising a glass to the Kiwi company globally disrupting the spirits market

Founders and brothers-in-law Mark Neal and Daniel McLaughlin had ambitions to expand their brand offshore from the get go – Mark says they wanted New Zealand to be known as a producer of the world’s best spirits, and they will hopefully be the grandfathers of that tradition.

“You only have to look at New Zealand’s wine industry which is currently worth around two billion dollars in exports to see what is possible. Ten years ago there wasn’t a market for pioneering spirits, so we started out with an ambition to grow a global company from New Zealand.”

The co-founders were both aware of the emergence of a gin scene overseas and realised that global shifts to a more premium product hadn’t yet hit the Kiwi market.

“We noticed most liquor stores only offered a choice between Bombay, Gordon’s or Tanqueray. At the time we started out there was only one brand of gin being made in New Zealand, now there are around 230. We felt that New Zealand provenience, alongside ingredients would lend themselves to a premium product that would have global appeal.”

In launching their brand the brothers also wanted to challenge people’s perceptions of gin and the generalisations of those who were consuming it.

“We wanted to create a modern, progressive brand in the somewhat traditional gin category.
We put a lot of emphasis on the brand, ensuring it had a core purpose, alongside packaging
which would cut through on the shelf and backbar.”

From humble beginnings

The duo started off by hand delivering bottles to bars in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, and Queenstown aiming to build their brand locally, it was a hard start and in those early years they found 10 people said no to every one person who said yes, however their determination paid off and as their brand grew they started to plan an export strategy which involved working around the globe to find the best distributors to represent their spirits.

During the early days Mark says what served the company best was having a clear purpose – quality above all else, this helped dictate decisions from a marketing, liquid, business and culture perspective.

“There is no victory in easy, and we’ve got pretty high expectations with our luxury portfolio
and that flows through the company in everything we do. Our bottle took about three years to
design, it doesn’t matter if you’re on a shelf in America or Argentina, you have about five seconds to attract a consumer’s attention, to part with that $80 on a product they have likely never tried.”

Staying true to quality

Staying true to quality has paid off for Scapegrace, the company was awarded the World’s
Best London Dry Gin among 600 entries from 90 countries at the 2018 International Wine Spirits Awards in London. This year, they also landed a major deal with leading UK supermarket chain Waitrose which has helped further expand their presence across Europe, a deal Mark says is hugely significant.

“Winning that award was a huge moment. It proved to us that our marketing, our bottles, and our sustainable processes – although not the easiest way to do it, was finally paying off. The deal with Waitrose was the holy grail. If you’re in with Waitrose you’re doing really well – but you have to continue to do well and it has to work for them – so it’s an ongoing process for us. We’ve put a lot of our energy, focus, investment and resources into this opportunity to make it work and this now means that our proud nation of Kiwi living in the UK can easily enjoy Scapegrace.”

Connections key to breaking into new markets

The founders say being introduced to the right people in the UK and making those strategic connections were key to their expansion and success. They would urge others to ask for help – saying it’s a surefire way to achieve your business goals faster.

“Kea Connect has been brilliant in helping us reach out to the Kiwi community in the UK and further afield. They were the first to introduce us to people like photographers, various suppliers and others who could really be an influence. Organisations like Kea bring you into their community and provide advice. Don’t be shy or worried about reaching out, being an open book is a great way to not have to figure it out all by yourself.”