HEMISPHERESMAGAZINE.COM
•
FEBRUARY 2013
83
JEFF QUINN (BEER); GARY TARDIFF (WHOOPIE PIE)
Barrel Fever
If you’re looking for a hotbed of invention, skip Silicon Valley
and head straight to your local cra brewery
The Next Small Thing
Corporations are finding that big
ideas often come from little places
That
Absolut
has seen fit to mix
vodka with sparkling wine might
not sound like a conceptual break-
through, but it has roots in one.
Absolut Tune, from French beverage
giant Pernod Ricard, came about
as a result of the company’s new
Breakthrough
Innovation Group,
a standalone divi-
sion devoted to
generating bright
(
and profitable)
ideas. The
move seems to
be paying off:
Pernod Ricard’s
net profit rose
10
percent
last year to
$1.5 billion and the company saw its
strongest growth in four years.
Many other big players are
becoming smitten with “intrapre-
neurship”—the idea that if they
start acting like startups, they’ll be
endowed with heightened creativity.
Consumer products conglomerate
Kimberly-Clark
,
for instance, con-
ducts “expert acceleration sessions”
that solicit input from academics
and entrepreneurs to generate
business strategies. Software firm
Intuit
organizes “lean start-ins” that
gather intrapreneurs from across
the company to create products
and services.
General Mills
has two
“
innovation squads,” consisting of
six to eight employees, tasked with
hunting for ideas from inside and
outside the organization.
Other companies have been
divvying their creative process
among smaller, more agile groups.
Nowhere is the fear of becoming
too large to sustain the spark
of creativity greater than in the
advertising sector. Which is why
the 400-person U.S. digital market-
ing agency
360
i
was recently split
into teams of five to 25 people that
work independently within the
broader organization. Groupthink,
begone.
—
BOYD FARROW
Mega-breweries have long dominated
the U.S. beer market by playing a
numbers game. A single Anheuser-
Busch plant in Florida produces
about 10 million cases of beer a
month. How are the li le guys sup-
posed to compete?
The answer is: They’re not. Instead,
America’s cra breweries are living up
to their name, employing a combina-
tion of guile, imagination and good
taste to produce beers that are as
accomplished as any on the planet.
In 15 years, outfits like Big Sky and
Flying Dog have come up with an
envelope-pushing style of brewing
that has reinvented and reinvigo-
rated the industry.
And they’re reaping the
rewards. While the overall beer
market inAmerica remains so ,
the indepen-
d e n t s a r e
booming: Production of cra beers
rose by 12 percent in the first eight
months of 2012 alone, to 6million bar-
rels; they account for 6 percent of the
U.S. market and are growing swi ly.
These smaller breweries have been
so successful, the giants have started
to emulate them (Blue Moon, from
MillerCoors, is just one of the mass-
produced cra -ybeers on themarket).
Butwhile clevermarketinghas played
a part in the success of America’s
niche brewers, image alone won’t cut
it. What the big boys can’t hope to
reproduce is the range of flavors being
offered by the independents, and the
artistry and audacity with
which they ply their trade.
There’s an ongoing con-
test among craft brewers
to produce bigger, badder
beers. They’re using experi-
mental ingredients like
chili and oysters; they’re
fermenting their products
in bourbon barrels. And
while the results may
not always
sound
agree-
able (names likeMoose
Drool are not uncom-
mon), they’ve secured
America a place among
the world’s most illus-
trious brewing nations.
Which is no small thing,
given that the Belgians
and the Brits had a bit
of a jump on the mar-
ket.
—
PAUL MCMORROW
MakingWhoopie
Alan Mons and Julie Ganong used to
work in financial services. Then 2008 happened. After the couple
were laid off, their careers took an unexpected twist: Mons and
Ganong, who baked whoopie pies as a kid, opened Chococoa
Baking Co., a small bakery in Newburyport, Mass. Shunning trans
fat and using all-natural ingredients, they developed a 130-calorie
version of the humble whoopie pie that fast became a hit.
In a down economy, Chococoa recently moved into a much bigger
space and is planning to take its whoopie pie national with help fromWhole Foods, which
stocks the treat in its New York stores. “It’s the quality of the product,” Ganong explains.
“
We came upwith amodern, healthier version of a childhood favorite.” And there’s plenty
for all, with 10 flavors (including salty caramel) and more on the way.
—
PHIL PRIMACK
T H E
H E M I
I N N O V A T I O N S P E C I A L
