Jos Ruffell
“We’re not fighting over 2 per cent [of the market],” Jos Ruffell, co-founder of Wellington’s Garage Project brewery, told the Herald in 2014. “We’re rapidly expanding into the other 98 per cent.”
It is a quote that captures both the collegial spirit of New Zealand’s burgeoning craft beer industry and Ruffell’s passion to grow his business — not to mention converting more Kiwis to better quality brews.
Ruffell is one of the three founders of Wellington based Garage Project. Its distinctive beers with names such as Pernicious Weed, Hops on Pointe and Death From Above are now being drunk around New Zealand, Australia, and as far away as Sweden, Norway and California.
The Garage Project approach is to push traditional boundaries, reinterpret styles and generally challenge the notion of what beer can be, Ruffell says.
Ruffell has combined his two passions — beer and business — in Garage Project, which last year topped the Deloitte Fast 50 with growth of 664 per cent.
He grew up reading autobiographies of success “greats” such as Sir Richard Branson and also became very close to John Britten during the creation of his world beating motorbike.
He spent time at university learning how to run companies, but found that much of his time was dedicated to writing plans and pitching ideas for others.
He founded a start-up game studio with a group of friends, which lasted until burnout and the need for change took priority. The opportunity came to take over a senior role at Biz Dev, where Ruffell was instrumental in building the business. Armed with this experience he decided his first foray into founding a company would be in brewing.
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“So we're getting generation after generation coming out into the workforce [and getting] their very first pay packet and they don't know what to do with it wisely,” she said. “And they certainly aren't thinking about retirement.”
Some of the largest brands in the world, such as Apple, American Express and Visa, use the loyalty programme. Jenkinson is now focused on 10 new companies that are using resources to their maximum and minimising waste. One of them is Globelet, which produces, distributes and cleans reusable cups, to reduce the waste from throwaway drink containers.