Local success story - Woopi Brewing Co
The Woolgoolga Brewing Co. (or Woopi Brewing Co as it’s referred to), launched their community craft brewery in 2021 and have enjoyed a successful first 12 months in business despite the challenges of operating a hospitality venue during a pandemic.
We caught up with one part of the craft brewery family, Sarah Poole, to hear more…
Owners Ryan & Sarah Poole with Member for Coffs Harbour - Gurmesh Singh.
Sarah, tell us about how the Brewery was born?
We’re ‘Mexicans’, moving up from Victoria where my husband and I lived most of our adult lives. We were on holidays with the family in Woopi, loved the place and decided to sell and move up here three years ago.
We’ve always wanted to open a brewery and create a space that people all across the community would want to come to. We love the industry. The craft community is very non-competitive and friendly.
We were fortunate enough to meet some other locals here who
shared the same vision for what we wanted. It was then a matter of
scouting for a location.
There are five families involved in the brewery and we wanted to keep it as small as we could, each party bringing their own background and skillset including strong hospitality operation skills, brewery skills from the very successful Mornington Peninsula Brewery, and some hardcore locals too. That has really helped us to build what we envisioned.
The Brewery looks amazing. It’s a great concept the warehouse in an industrial estate but with a large grassy area for kids and families (and pups!), a full brewing set up on display, and bar and catering services. Was there any key inspiration you pulled from other venues?
We were all just passionate about building the brewery that we wanted to be at. We wanted it to be a community space. We just happen to also make beer here and serve really good food too.
You seem to offer a range of activities and cater for a lot of different groups. Who is your target market?
Given we wanted to create a community space, we’ve established ourselves as a gathering place for different people at different times. There’s a time for families, for girl’s nights, for the lads to catch up. We encourage these groups to come in at different times with activities like musical bingo, trivia, our paint and sip sessions, art installations, kids entertainment, schooner and beer night specials.
There are other venues that have similar style of events but the success of ours is always about the people involved in the activities and the personality who is running it.
We really understand our customer – that is vital. We start with them and then choose the entertainment and activities that fits. We’re the first brewery like this in our patch. It was time to do
something different.
Staffing – everyone knows there’s an issue at the moment with big staff shortages across the industry. You seem to have a very low turnover of casual staff. Is there anything you’ve changed or do differently operationally to overcome this?
We haven’t had any trouble with casual staff at all. We treat them really well, we pay fairly and we make this a fun place to be. We find that ongoing training opportunities helps them learn and feel more engaged in the business. We have monthly training sessions which might include tour of different parts of the brewery, tasting sessions.
A brewery is different to a pub. People who visit a brewery are really interested in learning generally, so we need our team to be educated on the product.
Membership – you started a membership program for the brewery from Day 1. There are clear benefits for members but why is the membership program a good strategy for the brewery?
One of our partners comes from a brewery background and had experience with a membership program model that fitted in with the concept of what we wanted here.
Given our whole ethos is that we are a community-based brewery, the membership program makes people feel more part of what we are doing. Our ‘Woopi Brew Crew’ members are our biggest fans. They actively promote the brewery and bring friends and family in to experience it.
We offer different levels of membership with a range of price and inclusions. Not everyone wants the same things, so it works to give people options and choices. People feel special being a member.
You’ve got a background in marketing which I’m sure would be a great bonus for the operation. What’s the marketing strategy for Woopi Brewing Co and would there be anyone (or few) tactics that you’ve found most effective?
Understanding who your customer is first is critical. And then find out where they consume their information.
Our target groups range in age from 20 to 70. Social media is a big part of our communication strategy, but you need to build a database and regularly communicate with them. For us we also know that given we are targeting locals within a 30km radius, being in the local community mag and sponsorship of sporting teams helps. In holiday time we’re targeting visitors, so socials play a big part.
Socials is great to track and monitor who is engaging with your content and to find out who you are talking to. Doing that research is really important. We also rely a lot on our team, getting feedback from them, seeing what they think will work and getting out and listening to what people want.
Would you have any advice on what venues can be doing right now to attract more customers (and repeat customers) into their businesses?
Really look after the people who come into your venue with a consistent experience and make them feel special - they are the ones who will keep coming back. I think there is a lot of opportunity for regional hospitality operators who put a huge emphasis on service, training and going over and above. For us we know that anyone can pour a beer, it’s the other skills that matter.
Biggest lesson you’ve learned in your first year of operation?
I’ve got a few! Go with the flow. Don’t overthink things too much. Things have been really hard since September 2021 with covid, rain and floods. You need to have a strong belief in what you’re doing and you will build a great team.
Don’t focus on the things you can’t change, only the things you can.
And bringing in someone with experience is so valuable. They learnt all the hard lessons so no need to learn them all again.
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