Foundation of Business

Deep Roots Distillery Summary

• Located in Prince Edward Island. Highly popular for a tourist destination, tourists were mostly from Canada which accounted for 87.7% of the visitors.
• DRD had access to Beamish Orchard building for its manufacturing and tasting area. The products were crafted with locally sourced but not certified organic produce.
• Per capita sales of spirits and alcohols in PEI were $226, versus average national average of $182.

There are 4 main products sold:

• Maple liqueur, 25% with maple syrup.
• Island Time, 45% similar to a moonshine or vodka.
• Blueberry, 45% one time available supply of wild blueberry wine.
• Camerise Liqueur, 26.5% made from haskap berry (edible blue honeysuckle).

• 2014, first year of operation financial loss of $16,822. Although was expected to earn a financial gain of $62,600 in the prior year following 2015.
• DRD earned approx. $12.24 per bottle before production costs.
• A marketing budget was put in place for $17,150 from the period October 2013 – December 2014.
• Maple liqueur was outselling the other currently available products by a factor of approx. 5 to 1.
• The objective for DRD was to become a viable business to sufficiently generate a net business income of $36,000 during the initial year of operation, and to target for $80,000 long term to be able to have a combined annual salary for at least 2 people.

The Biggest challenge of deep roots distillery was facing competition. Deep Roots Distillery was incorporated in the year 2014 and at that time , there were many small distilleries that were doing pretty good. Competition was always a biggest challenge when DRD was opened.