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Greetings to all, The main announcements in this monthly news letter are opening of our online shop, discount period for March 2024, increase of direct sale prices and long term customer prices for rest of the year and planning of the business and study trip to Japan and Korea in the May 2024. Recommended event is Cidershow 2024 in Prague.
During this month, March, we will have special promotional sale as we did also during previous years around these dates. It will happen at our newly opened online shop. Please have a look and "test it" during this period to get your ciders and vinegar for advantageous prices. With exception of March 2024 the majority of online prices will be the same as during 2023, 12€ for standard batches and 18€ for micro-cuvées, plus cost of shipping. Please note, that we will be increasing prices for long term customers and during our direct sales at the markets and tasting events. They will increase from 8€ to 10€ for standard batches and from 12 to 15€ for micro-cuvées, plus cost of shipping where applicable. For people helping us to organize events we will keep some favourable options as we did before. Because we would like our customers to stay, it is important to have our ciders accessible, so March this years is the best month to order! After discussion, products can be delivered in batches over the year and after also paid in split payments if necessary. The main reasons for sales during February and/or March period are still the same. We need to get money to pay for costs of 2023 harvest and processing season, bottling and distillation and of course, keeping favourable options for long term customers. We have increased above mentioned prices because the profit became to low due to taxes, transportation costs and inflation. It is highly likely that next year we will increase professional prices per one euro and online prices by two, it would be three years since the last increase. We plan long term for the sale month, February or March to stay. We are opened to alternative or additional options how to keep our ciders and other products accessible. One of them which we consider, is to create one batch per year of 1000-2000 of 75cl bottles and have it for lower price till it is sold out. However this year we do not bottle. If you have other ides, please get in touch, this is sensitive and important part of this project, we want you to stay.
If you are into cider tastings and you would like to organize event with us, please let us know. For March it is mostly too late, April is very busy and during first half of May we will be in Korea and Japan trying to make opening for selling our ciders there. Also I, František would like to visit country, Korea, where I spent decent amount of my life. Any hints for places to do tastings, presentations and professional to invite are welcome!
If you have time please check out events below where we plan to be, the list is quite long, we are busy. Special attention should be paid to Cidershow 2024, which happens in Prague on 21th of March and is one of the biggest cider events in Czech Republic.
Yearly News Letter
Overview of the year 2023 and projections for 2024
Year 2023
- Financial Overview (only for investors or possible investors)
- Sales and marketing
From February 2023 our main focus for sales and marketing was Czech Republic. Main reasons for focusing there were interest of public in ciders, good pricing which we can set for our products compared for example to France, uniqueness of the flavour profile of our products. Also combination of decent knowledge of the environment, having contacts and importantly, long term goal to move majority of the business to Czech Republic played an important role. It took most of the year to prepare all the documents both in France and Czech Republic to be able to legally import cider from France and sell it in Czech Republic. The main part was creation of business in Czech Republic and coordination with the Czech custom service. At the moment Cidrerie/Kvasírna Jara can sell variety of cider related and other products in Czech Republic and within EU with exception of alcohols over 16% alcohol per volume (we are allowed to do so in France). For sale of higher degree alcohols beverages in Czech Republic, special caution of over 4 000€ is needed and creation of dedicated storage. Once done, we expect twenty percent increase in sales or even more. It took several months to learn how the environment of farmer's markets and other direct sale events works, build up the reputation and learn which markets and events are suitable for our activities and which not. During the year we had way less events to sell and present at than we would had capacity to do. During 2023 we have managed to get our products for sale in the first shop in Prague, M0st.
- Bottling of millésime 2022 and distillation of 2022 season
Around 15th of February 2023 we have bottled of around 2300 of 75 cl bottles of brut, assemblage 1, 2022 at specific density of 1014 and around 300 of 75 cl bottles of micro-cuvée 2, calva&honey. By now we can say that both of the cuvées were success. The rest of the ciders were distilled or made into vinegar. We would like to bottle more but the winter was again quite warm, so fermentation went fast so the ciders were too dry. Also we had limited resources to dedicate to bottling. In the autumn 2023 we have distilled around ?? hl of ?? alc. We would prefer to do so already in the spring but we did not have money for it. Around 10 hl of cider were dedicated to acetic fermentation to make vinegar.
- Harvest&transformation, bottling and distillation of 2023
During the autumn 2023 we have harvested and processed over 22 tonnes of apples. We would like to thank especially to Julia for help and also to friends. The last season the help was really crucial, especially because of the rich year on apples and horrible rainy and wet conditions which made the work not just less comfortable but also much harder because of variety of reasons. In total we have crashed and pressed over 23 tonnes of apples into approximately 170 hl (1 7000 l) of moût/juice. Unfortunately due to another warm autumn and winter we will not bottle any cider this year. Majority will go for distillation and bit for vinegar. We plan to make some kegs of cider, sweetening them by honey and flavouring with herbs, fruits and spices as an experiment for the summer. Distillation of the millésimes 2023 has to be postponed till late spring or beginning of summer, hopefully not autumn again. This is because of the lack of finances to pay for the apples and autumn services, it's the same company which is crashing and pressing for/with us, plus lack of funds to buy oak barrels which we need.
Year 2024
- Sales&Marketing
Thanks to hard work, reliability and performance during 2023, our capacity to sell during 2024 at variety of events has increased dramatically, nearly to the point of having more opportunities, than we can accommodate for. Please note that our long term goal and focus is business to business (B&B) sale model. Our online shop is finally freshly up and ready to be tested ???link???, please give us few weeks to "tune it" so it is kind of ready for wider public. We are happy to ship our products to you within Czech Republic and in the countries around or even further. Our shipping period is once per 14 days, usually sooner. We have now our products in three shops, Pepikárna, M0st and Medovinárna&Dobrý Cider, all of them focusing on a high quality segment of the market. We aim on selling our products through over twenty sellers by the end of 2024. Our online prices will stay during 2024 at 12€ for standard and 18€ for micro-cuvées. There is our already traditional discount during February/March to 8€ for standards and for 12€ for micro-cuvées. Direct sales during 2024 at most of the events, markets and tastings, will go from 8€ to 10€ for standard cuvées and from 12 to 14€ for micro-cuvées, except March. Professional prices 6,75€ for standard 75 cl bottles will stay, micro-cuvées went to from 8.75 to 9.75€. There is 0.5€ transportation fee per bottle for professional prices, if the seller doesn't do some event with us during the year. There will be increase in professional prices next year due to the inflation, taxes etc. of probably around 1€ per bottle.
- Bottling and distillation 2023 and 2024
As mentioned above, there will be no bottling of millésime 2023 except for some experimental kegs, distillation of 2023 will be postponed till late spring or even autumn because of lack of funds. It is crucial, that next season, 2024, we can bottle millésime 2024 as brut. This is due to the increasing sales which are depleting our stocks and also to further gather experience by bottling. We will need to do at least over 30 hectolitres (3 000 l) of cider as brut in 75 and 37.5 cl bottles. Very rough cost estimate of such bottling is of around 5 000€, done with the current equipment. If we don't bottle, we will have a rupture of stocks of bruts by sprinig or latest summer 2025. Our stocks of extra-bruts and micro-cuvées should be still fine for 2025. Because of the pressure on our stocks, we are considering to transport part of the moût from late November pressings of 2024 to Czech Republic and ferment it through the winter and spring. We would have much more time for necessary interventions during the fermentation process and also an advantage of lower temperatures during this period. Hopefully some of these ciders could be ready for sale by May or June of 2025, of course waiting till August or September 2025 would be better.
- Harvest Season 2024
During the autumn 2024, another harvest season will be here. It is highly likely, that it will be smaller one than 2023 because of the biannuality of orchards which we are renting. Our current model is to arrive by mid latest 25th of September, prepare the orchards and harvest and process the apples till end of November, then leave for Czech Republic to do sells at Christmas markets. We do consider changing the system and maybe going to Normandie for three ten days periods or so from mid of September till beginning of December. This would allow us to keep some profit from sales in Czech Republic and also keep our online shop active so there would be lower financial pressure. Also it would enable us to start partly harvest and process in Czech Republic. We are not sure if we do it like this but it is being considered.
- Wish list, what to support
As during previous years we do appreciate any donations towards the project. Thank you! The best for us however long term are business opportunities, if you could help us there, perfect, we will not let you down!
- market stand for events, ±700€. Decent amount of commercially interesting events insist on professionally looking stands, otherwise they will not let us to participate. Approximate price of suitable one is around 700€. We would like it to be custom build so it fits our purposes (overlap at the front so people can keep dry when tasting even when it rains, easy assembling and disassembling, wood&canvas as materials, within 195 cm wide so we fit to most of the events etc).
- deposit for Douane, ±4000€. We will need this deposit to be allowed to sell alcoholic beverages of over 16% of alcohol. Also we will need to rent somewhere place which can be certified as "tax excepted" so the taxes on alcohols which needs to be paid in the country of consumption are payed at the moment of sale and not of the import.
- oak barrels, ±900€. We want to start aging of over 17 hl (1 700 l) of distillates, which means either eight 225 l oak barrels or 2x 500 l and rest 225 l.
- 1.5 tonne trailer&B96 driving license, ±1 000€. To make import of our ciders more efficient we would like to get bigger trailer and B96 license to tow it. Also this would allow us to import decent amount of apples or pressed juice during the season.
- tanque à lait (bulk tank), ±2 000€. This basic cooling system would allow us to temporarily cool down the cider during it's fermentation to 4°C for example. This would cause sedimentation of yeast and other particles which we could remove by soutirage/racking. We could stabilize the cider, preparing it continuously for bottling even when overall environment is quite warm, over 8°C.
- boucheuse with 32 mm capacity (champagne bouchones), ±2 500€. Using for example ELVAmac Rapid 58 would give us possibility of using higher diameter of corks which last longer, allowing us even archiving of ciders over 10 years or so.
