Making more Tuatara and Making it Easier to Find

Ten years ago, you could get Tuatara on tap at The Malthouse on lower Willis Street, Bar Bodega on upper Willis Street and at the Tuatara brewery up in the hills. That was it. Since then, production and distribution have expanded dramatically, aided by the introduction of our stylish bottles.

Over the last twelve months or so, Carl and the team have been working hard to complete a major plant upgrade at the Brewery. It has basically doubled our brewing capacity and, with a couple more conditioning tanks, we should be able to produce three times as much as beer as we did at the same time last year. The challenge for the brewers, as always, is to ensure that beer quality remains high as we grow.

One area that has undergone a radical transformation is the bottling plant. This was from the old Harvest Cider plant in Gisborne and she certainly has a bit of age on her. However, Carl’s been chatting to her quietly and doing a bit of an overhaul. Today, the bottling plant is working better than ever.

The most tangible result is that the rate of ‘short fill’ has plummeted to virtually zero. That is good news for business but it has caused a bit of dismay for the young guys on the bottling line who used to get the short fills as staff drinks…

Now that Tuatara is making more beer – a lot more beer – we have decided to call in the professionals to help get this massive volume of craft beer into the bars and stores efficiently. We are proud to have partnered up with Toll Logistics. This partnership reflects the maturation of Tuatara as a business and allows our brewers to focus on brewing and bottling.

Their website says “Toll Logistics is Toll New Zealand's specialist in the provision of supply chain management and third party logistics, including: Container Devanning, Pallet Consolidation, Storage, Trucking Consolidation, Pallet and Box Picks, Despatch and Delivery”. What is means for us is that the biggest truck we can possibly get up the driveway swings by twice a week and takes all the beer that is not nailed down. That beer then ends up in the right place in the right time. We have to say, the system is working very well.

So, Tuatara is making more beer and it is being distributed professionally so it should be easier to find.

Finally, the best way to keep up to date with what is happening at Tuatara in the long week between blog posts is through social media. In the last year, we have really embraced technology and now have a strong presence on Facebook and Twitter. LinkedIn still kind of confuses us.

So, please ‘like’ us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. You can learn the most interesting things.

Cheers from the team at Tuatara