Double Caramel Sensational!

Wow! It has been a little busy over here at Lewis Road Creamery over the last few weeks.

Amidst everything else we’ve got going on, meaning making sure all our fresh milks, butters, and other products make their way from New Zealand farmers to your kitchen table, we launched our Double Caramel Milk, created with Chelsea Winter.

What makes this launch so exciting for us was the speed with which we were able to go from a blank sheet of paper to a fabulous new milk flavour that has sprinted to the top of our sales rank with our ever-popular Chocolate Milk.

And best of all, it has proved there really is magic. And the magic is Chelsea Winter.

Here’s how the magic happened. Like any business, as we’ve learnt, we need to keep a number of plates spinning at once. A couple of months ago, a product we had expected to launch had to be put on hold for lack of the right ingredients.

We needed to fill in that hole on the shelf — and fill it quickly — or it would be filled by our competitors. We looked to our Roadies for inspiration. And inspiration you gave us! Caramel Milk? Of course! But we thought, let’s not give our customers just any caramel milk.

If we are going to do this the Lewis Road Creamery way, then let’s double down and create a double caramel!

So that was decision number one and it took all of 10 minutes. The next step was to decide what a double caramel might taste like and what caramels could we use. As we gathered around our kitchen table at ‘Global HQ’ (you can see it in the picture above), we pondered two things: how might we decide on the flavours and with whom could we develop the milk?

Next morning we had the answer to both. One of our team, Claire, talked it over that evening with her partner Daniel, a chef. The following morning she brought in a pot of butterscotch and another of dark caramel. In the meantime, Angela, our marketing guru, came in with an ‘I’ve been thinking moment’, and suggested we approach Chelsea Winter to see if she would like to collaborate with us.

You know the end of that story! Chelsea immediately added her magic to perfect the Double Caramel recipe you’re now drinking.

We weren’t ready yet to unveil this delicious drink though. You see, while caramel is easy to make in little batches over the stove, it is really challenging to make in commercial quantities in a way which remains true to the simplicity of good homemade version but able to work with fresh milk bottling at the plant.

That’s where Michelle, who oversees our operations, came in. She told a harrowing story of another company who attempted to make huge batches of caramel, only to have it turn to solid toffee! Apparently, they had to call in a digger to dig out tonnes of spoilt product!

Again, our food tech partners and bottlers excelled with their ‘can do’ attitude regarding both product and timing. Within a couple of weeks, and with Chelsea’s constant support, we had it cracked (excuse the pun).

Then, it was off to the races! Well, not quite. To sell a new product with national distribution requires the belief and willingness of the supermarket chains to get in behind it and support it.

And that they did in spades.

Now it was launch time, all within a few short weeks of having no more than a blank sheet of paper. We think we might have created a world record of sorts!

To build excitement and show our Roadies true Double Caramel love, we dreamed up a live event and decided to pick a town for the very first sampling in all of New Zealand. Ashburton came up trumps, and on Monday July 4, there was Chelsea and our team in Ashburton sampling 2000 bottles of deliciousness.

As I write this, Double Caramel is our number one seller BUT Chocolate Milk sales have increased too. I would never have picked that but I’m delighted with the result.

The moral of the story for me is twofold. Pressure really does make diamonds and magic is real.

We’ve always concentrated on delivering delicious products to our customers and delivering them new and delightful products. Combine that with our belief that where there’s a will, there’s a way, and it’s possible to turn around new products in next to no time with great results as long as the focus is on quality and you’re prepared to back your own (collective) judgment. You don’t need a big team or a complex process.

All you need is a smart team who just wants to get things done and believes that they can.

And Roadies who appreciate and love what we do.

Thanks to each and every one of you. It’s fun and challenging and we can’t stop for a minute but every time we do something new, we learn something new too. I thought I might share some of those lessons in the next blog. Cheers.