Beerenberg team steps up for double shifts

A strong lift in national sales, improving exports and a steadily expanding product range have meant it’s all shoulders to the wheel at Australian family-owned jam, sauce and condiment maker, Beerenberg.

Beerenberg Managing Director, Anthony Paech says workers at the sixth generation company have been putting in extra time, casual staff members have converted to full-time and several new employees have been hired to support the introduction of double shifts at Beerenberg’s kitchens in the Adelaide Hills town of Hahndorf.

“Our team members have been fantastic in the way they have stepped up to ensure we meet fast-growing demand and improved exports arising from a strong offshore marketing effort and currency exchange rates coming back into balance,” Mr Paech said.

“We also have a very strong and agile product development program driven by our existing customers putting forward their ideas via social media and harnessed by some real food innovators within Beerenberg.

“All of this comes on top of the release of a new Beerenberg brand about 12 months ago, which has seen sales of our products through national supermarket chains lift by up to 30 per cent.”

Beerenberg  changed its labels for the first time in 40 years last July to help it stand out on shelves increasingly crowded with multi-national and imported brands.  The new look has highlighted its authenticity and regional relevance in a sea of foreign competition.

“Most pleasingly, our strongest increases in demand came from the key high population markets of NSW, Victoria and Queensland with the result that we are now well on the road to being a truly national brand,” Mr Paech said.

The company is exploring options to expand its production facilities on the farm that has been run by the Paech family since 1839.

Mr Paech, who is also Chair of food industry group FoodSA and a Board Member of the
Australian Food and Grocery Council, said the strong increase in sales had confirmed a long-held belief that consumers were increasingly discerning in their search for quality, authenticity and provenance in a market which has become global and homogeneous.

“In my discussions with buyers on export development trips to the Middle East, China and broader Asia, I am excited by the opportunities Australian producers have to provide what we as Australians  take for granted, to markets which yearn for what we have and are prepared to pay for it,” Mr Paech said.

“Increasingly, food grown in clean soils in clear air and watered with clean rain are a luxury – and Australian producers have the opportunity to take advantage of that perception in export markets – and to fight for domestic sales against imports with an unknown provenance.”

Beerenberg has long been promoting its authenticity by engaging with its customers and advocates via digital and social media, in particular through its pioneering Provenance Pathway which allows purchasers to enter the barcode of a purchased product onto the company’s website and trace the local sources of ingredients and even meet the people responsible for its creation.

ABOUT BEERENBERG:

In 1839, the Paech family settled at a property at Paechtown, near Hahndorf in South Australia. Six generations of the Paech family have lived and worked on this farm, now known as Beerenberg. 

In the early 1970s, Grant Paech made the first batch of strawberry jam on his kitchen stove and 40 years later Beerenberg Pty Ltd is still owned and managed by the Paech family with an outstanding reputation for using the freshest farm produce and traditional recipes to make home-style preserves, jams, condiments and sauces.

From its humble beginnings in the Adelaide Hills to one of Australia’s most loved producers, Beerenberg now offers more than 65 products and exports to 25 countries around the world.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION VISIT:

Website: www.beerenberg.com.au
Facebook: www.facebook.com/Beerenberg
Twitter:  www.twitter.com/BeerenbergFarm

ISSUED BY HUGHES PUBLIC RELATIONS:

Please contact Natalie Ciccocioppo on 08 8412 4100 or natalie@hughespr.com.au.