East Yorkshire’s award-winning Great Newsome micro-brewery has adapted its sales model and diversified thanks to enhanced internet connection, switching online sales from just 2% of its business rot 90%.
Its broadband provider is now Quickline Communications, and the collaboration has allowed the brewery, in Winestead, Holderness, to capitalise on its new brewery by adapting to a rapidly-changing marketplace.
Pre-Covid, the family-run business was doing only minimal online trading, but tanks to the new broadband capability moved to focus on online trading to survive when the country was forced into lockdown.
Great Newsome, which uses barley from its own fields to produce its beer, now also operates a firewood sales business and offers glamping and holiday home retreats on its farm – all of which have been made possible by its improved internet service.
Matthew Hodgson of Great Newsome Brewery said: “When Covid hit and we went into lockdown, everything changed and the only way we could survive during that period was to deliver straight to our customers.
“Thankfully, we’d switched to Quickline to give us fast, reliable internet. Previously, it had been very patchy at best, and we wouldn’t have survived without the improved service.
“Now, it’s essential to our business. Our software is all Cloud-based and we need broadband for everything from taking orders online, telephone sales and taking payments, to things like social media to promote our businesses. It’s also meant we’ve been able to expand to launch our firewood business and glamping and holiday home breaks.
“It really shows the crucial importance of broadband in rural communities like ours.”
Quickline, which has already passed more than 300,000 premises with its existing next-generation fixed wireless broadband network in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, is blending that with full fibre to create the UK’s only gigabit hybrid network.
Quickline CEO Sean Royce said: “I’ve known about Great Newsome Brewery for some time and am a fan of their beer, so I’m delighted we’ve been able to support their business.
“Covid changed everything and showed how important fast and reliable broadband is for everyone, in all communities, and for businesses to survive and thrive.
“The recent FSB report highlights how rural communities have been neglected by major broadband providers for years, which is why we’re on a mission to reach these areas.
“At Quickline, we don’t just sell broadband and build networks, we change people’s lives, and Great Newsome Brewery is a prime example of that.”
