Oil and beer
♦ How innovation and international expansion became a local success story
It just took one idea, perhaps formed over a beer, to create a local success story.
That story stems from the innovative conversion of technology used in the oil and gas industry for brewing beer, and it’s one that has since traveled across the globe.
Rome-based Hydro Dynamics’ ShockWave Xtractor cavitation technology allows brewers to extract more of the oils in the hops used in brewing beer. The benefit of that technology is that it cuts down on the use of the grain, which is one of the most expensive parts of the brewing process.
Mary Waters, the deputy commissioner of international trade at the Georgia Department of Economic Development, lauded the ability of Hydro Dynamics to repeatedly open new international markets as an example of how a small local company can have a global impact.
Local success stories can be overshadowed by massive record breaking trade numbers set by the state, like recording over $166 billion in total trade in 2021, but they’re no less important.
“I think when we talk about these records, sometimes the local impact can really get lost,” Waters told Rome Rotary Club members,. “I just really want to bring it back to the local importance of engaging local companies here in Floyd County, and making sure we understand what their goals are for international expansion and what the Department of Economic Development brings the appropriate resources to them to help them succeed.”
That kind of help led Hydro Dynamics to receive recognition this past year from the department for consistently opening new international markets through product expansion.
In 2022 the company was awarded the Global Grit award, for earning five consecutive GLOBE recognitions from the state.
This year’s award came after a contract with a rum company located in the Seychelles, off the eastern coast of Africa. Takamaka Rum is distilled, aged and blended at the Trois Frères Distillery, on the main island of Mahé.
While that may be a drop in the bucket of the $42 billion in trade goods Georgia exported in 2021, every drop counts.
“In terms of the numbers, $42 billion in exports, that’s a big number,” she said. “It doesn’t happen without individual Georgians working at small companies and communities all across the state building things, growing food, developing services, developing technology and working together to package those and get those out to a global market.”