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Yearly News Letter
Overview of the year 2023 and projections for 2024
- Foreword
We, especially me, František Algoldor Apfelbeck, would like to thank you for your help and continuous support over the years. With the covid, some family and health issues in the past years, making the business happen was not easy. I can say now, honestly, that I can see things happening. It is not exactly the way how expected or planned but the sales our going up, bills are getting paid through this project. For the ones who would like to continue their support, well please do! We truly believe in quality of our products, environmentally friendly ways of making them and being in good spirits when making them. Please do invite us to the events you think would profit from our presence, help us to organize tasting events or presentations at your communities and of course get our products. If you like you can always donate to help us out. We appreciate it all, at the end of this newsletter is our wish list for 2024, if you want some hints of what we are especially after ;-)
Many thanks to all of you once more, please keep in touch and prosper!
For Cidrerie/Kvasírna Jara, 7/3/2024 in Prague,
František Algoldor Apfelbeck
Year 2023
Greetings to all. Our yearly news letter is here. For more info please check our [[News|news section], where you have month to month updates.
- Financial Overview
Details of financial development of this project are being shared with our investors and financial instituations. In the upcoming months we will think about a way how to widen it for people who sign in for our news letter and if to do it monthly or yearly, lets see. Just in short, this year we want to avoid creating any more debts. We want to pay living costs of František Algoldor Apfelbeck, investments into 2023 season and autumn part of season 2024. It is realistic that we will start to pay debts which were created when launching this project in 2019 and 2020, clearing them by 2025. Still if the numbers are good, we would like to find investors who would be OK to cover our debt so we can pay out our current investors during 2024. Lets see.
- Sales and marketing
From February 2023 our main focus for sales and marketing was Czech Republic. Main reasons for focusing there, were the interest of public in ciders, good pricing which we can set for our products compared for example to France and uniqueness of the flavour profile of our products compared to other ciders on the market. Also combination of the knowledge of the cultural 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 office. 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 as Cidrerie Jara). 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 think, that it is realistic to expect increase in sales by twenty percent 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 season 2022
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 season 2023
During the autumn 2023 we have harvested and processed over 22 tonnes of apples. We would like to thank especially to Julia for her help and also to friends Camille, Hugo, Lydia and others. 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 (17 000 l) of moût/juice. Unfortunately due to another warm autumn and winter we will not be able to 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 them with herbs, fruits and spices as an experiment for the summer. Distillation of the millésime 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, crashing and pressing, which are done by the same company. Also we don't have enough now money to buy oak barrels which we need.
Year 2024
- Sales&Marketing
During 2023 we work hard on promotion and sale of our products, we built reputation which opened many doors. We can now sell at variety of the events, nearly to the point of having more business opportunities than are our capacities. Please note that our long term goal and main focus is business to business (B&B) sale model. So this development is nice but ... 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, within EU and even further after coordination. Our shipping period is once per two weeks, usually sooner. We have now our products in three shops, Pepekárna, 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, quite a goal. 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 15€ for micro-cuvées, except March. Professional prices 6,75€ for standard 75 cl bottles will stay, micro-cuvées went from 8.75 to 9.75€. There is 0.5€ transportation fee per bottle added to professional prices, if the seller doesn't do some event with us during the year, then it's omitted. There will be increase in professional prices next year due to the inflation, taxes etc. of probably around 1€ per bottle. To keep our products accessible we consider for example to create one batch per year of 1000-2000 of 75cl bottles and have it for lower price till it is sold out. We would reuse bottles, cap would be just standard metallic one etc. However this year we do not bottle. If you have other ides, please get in touch, accessibility is an important part of this project, we want you to stay.
- Bottling and distillation of millésime 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 continue gathering experience by bottling. We will need to do at least over 30 hectolitres (3 000 l) of cider as bruts in 75 and 37.5 cl bottles. Very rough cost estimate of such bottling is around 5 000€, done with the current equipment. If we don't bottle, we will have a rupture of stock of bruts by spring or latest summer 2025. Our stock of extra-bruts and micro-cuvées should be still fine for 2025 even if we don't bottle millésime 2024. Because of the pressure on our supplies, we are considering to transport part of the apples from late November harvest and process them and ferment the resulting moût/juice in Czech Republic through the late autumn, winter and spring. Otherwise we could import moût which we do in Normandie and do the same. We would have much more time and flexibility 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 land on us. It is highly likely, that it will be smaller than 2023 because of the biannuality of orchards which we are renting. Our current model is to arrive to Normandie by mid, latest by 25th of September, prepare the orchards and keep harvesting and processing the apples till end of November. Then we leave for Czech Republic to do sales at Christmas markets and take care of online shop. We do consider changing the system and maybe go to Normandie for three ten day periods or so from mid of September till beginning of December. This would allow us to keep some profit from sales at events during autumn and also keep our online shop active so there would be lower financial pressure. Of course going in and out like this is stressful and we would need more help with harvesting and processing. However this system would also enable us to start harvesting, processing and producing cider in Czech Republic. We are not sure if we do it like this but it is being seriously considered because the stress of not being able to bottle again and again is mounting.
Wish list for 2024, 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 assemblage and dis-assemblage, 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.
