Brewing a new purpose with Fermentum Craft Beer Co.
It’s easy to assume multi-national corporations and purpose simply don’t mix. But you can’t underestimate the power of community-centric, passionate teams with big visions to reshape the future of business.
In late 2023 we were fortunate enough to partner with Fermentum Craft Beer Co. to embark on a piece of work that turned out to be one of the most insightful, challenging and inspiring projects we’d embarked on.
A bit of background
In 2021 Fermentum Group, the owner of independent and community-centric Byron Bay brewery Stone & Wood, sold to Lion, a multi-national beverage company. As part of the sale Fermentum evolved into Fermentum Craft Beer Co. under the Lion banner, taking on some of Australia’s iconic craft beer brands under its portfolio.
Two of the cornerstone brands under the new portfolio, Stone & Wood and Little Creatures, both have strong foundations as independent, purpose-driven businesses deeply embedded in community, grassroots activism, and environmental sustainability. The Fermentum and Lion integration was naturally a catalyst for major change and transition across all levels of the business.
The Fermentum Craft Beer team were asking two key foundational questions:
Who is Fermentum Craft Beer Co.?
How do we maintain our purpose-driven focus?
The Formative & Fermentum partnership
The Formative was engaged to embark on an identity development partnership to:
● Capture the unique cultural legacies of the iconic brands within the Fermentum Craft
Beer Co portfolio, while creating a new, united identity
● Uncover and explore common values and philosophies across the portfolio and team
● Identify opportunities and avenues for impact and purpose beyond profit
● Support the team to connect, align and share their experiences and future vision
● Lay the groundwork for the development of new organisational behaviours and ways-of-working.
And ultimately, define Fermentum Craft Beer Co’s new purpose to reflect their legacy, their behaviours and their vision for a future as part of a larger organisation.
Our approach
● Deep listening and storytelling: to find a path forward as a united organisation we sought to explore the commonalities within Fermentum’s portfolio of brands, their teams and their respective communities. We used a combination of survey, 1:1 interviews and focus groups to create supportive spaces for the team to be heard, share their knowledge, experiences, and insights, and generate ideation and discussion on areas of opportunity for Fermentum to create a positive impact within its new corporate context.
● Conscious Co-design: We ran a full-day design workshop with a fantastic group of Lion and Fermentum team members composed of a cross-section of functional and brand representatives. Knowing the team were at capacity and had been experiencing high-work load we chose a location where the team could work outside, naturally supporting creativity and mindfulness while contextually connecting them with sustainable land and agriculture initiatives.
● Empowered stakeholder engagement and management: post design-day the leadership and design team iterated the draft purpose statement and worked closely with their Lion counterparts to arrive at a purpose that was deeply values driven, aligned with Lion’s purpose.
The result?
It’s always best coming from the source:
“Caitlin guided our people in co-creating a new organisational purpose that is fit for our new operating context whilst honouring our rich histories.
The program of work was undertaken within a tight timeframe, was iterative in nature and involved multiple stakeholders. Caitlin’s ability to remain open, flexible and keep the end goal in mind was a huge asset along the way.
Our new purpose has provided an inspiring way forward for our people, given us a strong sense of identity coupled with a clear line of sight on the role we play in the broader Lion family.
This work is just the beginning for us, it has set a great foundation for us to go forward and we are grateful to Caitlin for the role she played.” - Richard Crowe, Fermentum Leader & Head of Supply Chain
Interested in exploring how we can help your team? Reach out for a chat, we’d love to hear from you.