CROWDFUNDED food and drink business Flavourly has taken the crowdsourcing ethos to another level after launching four new beers that have been designed based on customer reviews.
The Edinburgh-based business, which runs an online bottlestore and craft beer and gin clubs, came up with the recipes for the beers after analysing the feedback left in 140,000 customer reviews.
It then partnered with Yorkshire-based brewery Bad Co, which brewed the beers.
Flavourly ran an online competition to come up with names for the end products, with Pillow Fight, Flamingo Juice, Electric Boogaloo, and Endless River being picked from the 2,000 entries it received.
Flavourly chief executive David Moore said that as the company operates online it had been important for it to engage its online community in the decision-making process for the new launches.
“We’re an online drinks tech company, so launching our own range of beers is an important step for us,” he said.
“We’d found a great and reliable brewing partner in Bad Co but we wanted to involve our tens of thousands of beer fans.
“We felt creating a range of democratic beers designed by our community was a great way to build a bridge between our business and our customers.”
The business, which was set up by Scottish entrepreneur Ryan O’Rorke, who is the company’s chief operating officer, raised £515,000 from 339 Crowdcube members in 2015.
Mr O’Rorke turned down a £75,000 investment from backers on the BBC’s Dragons’ Den earlier that year.
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