The story of Cobra Beer

[EnglandBorn]

Huge beer company in the UK (great with curries).

The article is mainly about dealing with the 2008 recession and bouncing back from administration (caused by investing most of their cashflow into growing the business by 40% year by year), but here is a sparkling example of fastlane principles when finding an idea and scaling it out:

A lover of beer since his teenage years, Lord Bilimoria was unhappy with the quality of British lager, especially when drinking it with a curry.

He says: "The lager was too fizzy, too harsh and too bloating. It meant that I couldn't eat or drink as much as I would like.

"At the same time, I found real ale to be great in a pub, but too bitter and heavy with food. So I came up with the idea of creating a beer with the refreshment of a lager, but with the smoothness of an ale.

"I wanted it to not just be drinkable in its own right, but a great accompaniment to all food, and particularly Indian cuisine."

Undeterred by having no experience of the beer industry, Lord Bilimoria went to the head brewer at what was then India's largest independent brewery, and together they developed the recipe for Cobra.

And so Cobra Beer was born in 1989, with the first deliveries from India arriving by container ship into the UK in 1990.

Basing himself in an office in the Fulham area of south-west London, for the first year Lord Bilimoria delivered bottles of Cobra door-to-door in his Citroen 2CV, targeting Indian restaurants.

Initially Cobra was only available in big 660ml bottles, as such a large size is the most popular in India.

Lord Bilimoria says it gave the business an immediate advantage, as the bottles stood out in curry houses.

"People sitting at other tables would see the bottle and say, 'What is that?' The popularity spread like wildfire, people loved the taste, and we got 99% reorders."

You can read the full article here - http://www.bbc.com/news/business-28439834

 

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[themaxx]

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[BeDoHave]

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