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| Owners Tom Burkleaux and Matthew Van Winkle. |
New Deal Distillery is a small batch producer of spirits in Portland. True to artisan ideals, the distillery’s founder, Tom Burkleaux knew when he started the business in 2001 that he wanted to create an authentic product he could be proud of.
Now, 11 years later, New Deal has a flight of nine lovingly crafted gins, vodkas, and liqueurs with more flavors being tested and developed throughout the year. However, New Deal faces challenges common to many craft producers: How to hone their buying practices and maintain a consistent supply while marketing and selling their product in order to grow their business.
“If you’re going to do a flavor you’ve gotta use the real food,” said Burkleaux of his thought process behind creating the tastes found in New Deal’s spirits. Easy enough, perhaps, for a chef preparing a dish, but when New Deal came onto the scene most beverages were still flavored with ingredients manufactured in a lab.
In the beginning, New Deal turned to grocery store shelves to find fresh ingredients for their flavored vodkas, but it quickly became apparent that the business couldn’t survive buying ingredients at retail prices.
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| New Deal Manager Sarah Ashton works the tasting room. |
“That worked for a while,” said Sarah Ashton, New Deal’s Manager, “and then we needed larger quantities than we could find at a grocery store, but we couldn’t meet the order minimums that a lot of the larger food distribution companies wanted in order to have us as a client.”
However, when she discovered FoodHub, Ashton saw the potential to overcome that hurdle in the business’ supply chain challenges.
“FoodHub sounded like a great idea because part of the problem I was having was finding the things I knew existed somewhere because you get them at small quantities at the grocery stores,” she said. “I was looking for that middle quantity, but from a consistent vendor, a reliable vendor, and hopefully a local vendor.” (more…)
