THE BIG PROFILE: PAUL MILLER, EDEN MILL
http://www.insider.co.uk March 2020 INSIDER 23
on tour, you’ll get a very different
experience. There is some common
thread through the stories, but it
won’t be press the button and get the
corporate message.
“I am really proud of the fact that
we’ve had so many great people come
through the business and go on to
good stuff elsewhere in the industry.
We’re probably at the stage where
we should worry about retention,
but these are First World problems
really,” he laughs.
Another successful face of the
Eden Mill business is Blendworks
where people go to an Eden Mill
premises in St Andrews or Princes
Square in Glasgow and make their
own gin. Miller says: “It’s back to the
fact that people want experiences as
much as they want stuff these days.
If they can come and have a great
afternoon and walk away having
made their own gin, then
we have had the opportunity to be
the educators.
“It gives us the opportunity to
explain a bit more about what we’re
about as a brand and a business.
Hopefully we can take people all
the way through from having an
awareness and affinity with our
brand all the way through to being
advocates or ambassadors.
“We have a really simple, five-step
process we try and take all consumers
through from awareness of the brand,
affinity is the second step – we want
them to really get what we’re all about
“Engagement would involve
us giving them something or,
alternatively, a better level of
engagement is them coming to visit
us. A fourth level is advocacy – that
is if you’re at a dinner party and your
friends are asking you why do you
choose Eden Mill, you’re able to give
your reason why you drink Eden Mill
and a really snappy fact about us.
“Out and out ambassadorship is
the ultimate stage – when they reach
the stage of retweeting everything
before we’ve even tweeted it,” he
laughs. “That’s nirvana in terms of
reaching ambassador status.”
In December Eden Mill said it had
boosted its revenues by 48 per cent
to £8m and that its operating profit
grew to £495,000.
The breakdown of Eden Mill’s
revenues, Miller says, is whisky five
per cent, beers four per cent, ready to
drink (RTD) and liqueurs 21 per cent
and gin – including flavoured gins –
71 per cent.
Miller says: “What’s interesting
in the gin market at the moment is
there’s a gin drinker who drinks gin
and tonic – we’re probably not that
far removed from that consumer
here,” he says referring to the current
company who were 50-plus.
“Up to 20 years younger is the
other drink consumer which is
predominantly female, far younger,
but they don’t just drink gin with
tonic, they drink it with a variety of
mixers, and they like flavoured gins
as much as gins.”
He says: “RTDs are a fantastic
fit for people’s lifestyles just now.
Consumers are prepared to pay a wee
bit more for a daily treat. The three of
us are old enough to remember when
you rewarded yourself you didn’t
have a Starbucks and a croissant,
you maybe had a Nescafe an a
digestive biscuit and you would be
£5 better off. “
At peak we were selling 70,000
cans a week to Aldi of ready to drink
gin and tonics or gin pluses as we
call them; really interesting serves
of flavoured gins with mixers. We
have now got a commitment from
Aldi for the coming year of what
we’re going to do there. We’ve found
ourselves in the fortunate position of
probably being ahead of the curve in
that area. We probably think we’ll sellabout two million cans in the next
financial year.” Another popular line
is the Mixology pre-mix cocktails
in aluminium bottles under the
Botanical Project label which is sold
only in Aldi.
At the end of 2017 the university
finally called time on Eden Mill and
gave them six months to move from
their previous site. Miller says: “We
thought this day would never come.
We had sunk a lot of money into the
site, into the experience, by this time;
people were loving coming to visit us.
It left us in this difficult position that
we didn’t really want but had
to move.”
Eden Mill secured another site
from the university that “wasn’t quite
ready but would be the absolutely
perfect”. That site is designed around
St Andrews University’s aspiration
to be carbon neutral by 2025. It
will host a range of sustainable and
environmentally friendly businesses.
It will include a biomass plant that
provides enough hot water to heat all
of the university’s buildings, which
gets piped up the three-and-a-half
miles to do so.
Miller’s ambition now is to build
the first carbon neutral distillery in
Scotland. Work will begin in June to
build the visitor experience which
Eden Mill hopes will attract between
50,000 and 75,000 visitors in the first
year – the previous small distillery
was hosting 25,000 a year and was at
capacity.
Miller says: “We know what the
potential is. But we can’t just be
another distillery, so carbon neutral is
the aspiration, and on top of that we’ll
have our own little Garden of Eden
alongside it where we will be growing
botanicals and doing a little bit of
vertical farming.”
He says the downside is that the
new development is only happening
now and that it is locked off its old
site. So to get production space Eden
Mill bought a brewery in Penrith –
which by happy chance was called
the Eden Brewery – to ease its
production problems.
The early part of this year will see
Miller raising £7m in investment
for the next stage of Eden Mill’s
development with £3m to be spent
on the distillery itself, £2m on the
visitor centre and £2m to lay down
casks of whisky and for general
working capital.
Eden Mill has come a long way
from that early hour of the morning
conversation. ■57'VDUHDIDQWDVWLFğWIRU
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