A MORAY craft brewer is aiming to raise £600,000 in a crowdfunding campaign as it targets further international expansion.
Export-focused WooHa Brewing Company, based at Kinloss, has launched the campaign on the Crowdcube platform as part of a broader £1.5 million fundraising effort.
The craft brewer was established in 2015 and started exporting to the US in the same year.
READ MORE: Ian McConnell: Unsettling tick-tock sound as Johnson takes UK down path of Brexit misery, against Scotland's will
It now also exports to countries across Europe and south-east Asia. And it has been targeting the fast-growing Chinese market.
WooHa, which flagged its “established portfolio of export partners”, is raising funding to continue to build its sales team, expand its international customer base and fund promotional activity. The brewer noted money raised from the crowdfunding exercise would also help fund the launch of its new 500-millilitre can for the Chinese market.
WooHa added that this was part of its strategy of tailoring its products to particular markets, citing its recent development of a steel-keg range specifically for the US as another example of this approach.
Chief executive Heather McDonald said: “We have a strong vision about how we plan to grow the brand rapidly and in a sustainable way. Key to this expansion will be our sales team as we need more people on the ground in our key markets.”
She added: “We also need robust marketing and strong support for our international partners. The funding secured through our crowdfunding campaign will help make our ambitions a reality.”
As part of WooHa’s fundraising campaign, it is holding investor events this month in London, Manchester, Edinburgh and Inverness.
It said: “The events will give people the chance to hear from WooHa founder Heather McDonald about the next stage of the brewery’s journey and will offer potential investors the chance to ask questions about the business, its growth plans and its exit strategy.”
Ms McDonald cited “WooHa’s experience with and focus on export markets, as well as a well-defined three to five-year exit strategy”.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here