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TheBuzz Erika Engle |
COURTESY OF MOOSEHEAD BREWERIES LTD.
Cases of Moosehead beer are shown in this company photo. The brewer will honor Hawaii's Paradise Beverages Inc. for distributing more Moosehead than any other U.S. distributor.
Hawaii is paradise
for Canada’s oldest
independent breweryEH brah (pidgin accent) -- it's Moosehead, eh (Canadian accent). Hawaii-based Paradise Beverages Inc. will be honored next week by executives of Moosehead Breweries Ltd., Canada's oldest independent brewery.
Paradise distributes more Moosehead Lager than any of the beer's other U.S. distributors.
Really.
Bruce McCubbin, president and chief operating officer, and Glenn McDonald, vice president of marketing and sales for the United States, are heading to Hawaii to recognize the local company's hard work with a presentation.
Paradise sold 132,000 cases, or 3 million bottles of beer, in Hawaii in 2003, up from 1 million in 1997 when it was ranked No. 6.
Beer-making, brewery-saturated Colorado is four-times bigger population-wise, but "Hawaii sells twice as much Moosehead," McCubbin said.
While some other states consume more Moosehead, they are served by more than one distributor, he said.
Paradise Beverages became Moosehead's top dog in 2001.
"Year upon year for six years, even with the drop-off a lot of brands saw after 9-11, they were still able to find ways of growing the business," said McDonald.
"The key to their success is the way they've implemented the national (sales) programs and developed localized programs," he said.
The brand does well against other imports, too.
"Those guys are in a class all their own," said Joel Levesque, vice president of public affairs. "They've made Moosehead the No. 3 imported beer in Hawaii. It doesn't come anywhere close to that in the contiguous 48 states."
Levesque is aware of the so-called "snowbirds" that flee cold northern winters for warmer climes in Hawaii and elsewhere. Nevertheless, the company knows it's not just Canadian consumption that's responsible for Moosehead's mass quaffage in the islands.
"I think it's your own citizens that buy our beer," said Levesque. The surfer crowd likes the higher-than-domestic-beer alcohol volume, he's told.
The recognition is one of those proud-but-humble things for the local company.
"I think honestly we've been very fortunate. We have a very good working relationship with our supplier, which is Moosehead, and retailers' support for the brand and most of all, our employees are able to execute the plan that we put together for the brand," said Gary Arakaki, sales manager for Paradise Beverages. The goal is to put the brand in front of as many consumers as possible in as many venues as possible, he said.
The Moosehead executives aren't arriving with tons of cash, McCubbin chuckled, but they will present the Paradise team with some gifts from Canada, "to recognize that they've been doing a fabulous job."
McCubbin laughed out loud when it was observed that the presentation was being made in Hawaii in February, when it is especially cold in eastern Canada.
"You got that right!" he laughed. His wife gets to escape the cold with him for 11 days, McCubbin said.
Have the Hawaii guys ever been to the New Brunswick brewery?
"No they haven't. We'd love to return the hospitality," McCubbin said. "Maybe they'd love to come up in February."
See the Columnists section for some past articles.
Erika Engle is a reporter with the Star-Bulletin. Call 529-4302, fax 529-4750 or write to Erika Engle, Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 500 Ala Moana Blvd., No. 7-210, Honolulu, HI 96813. She can also be reached at: eengle@starbulletin.com
