Zymurgorium- No Strings Investment

zymurgorium

TestTown People: Zymurgorium- No Strings Investment

Participants

Aaron Drake – Zymurgorium The Manchester Distillery

About the project

When setting up the amount of prize investment for the TestTown Grand Final each year, Carnegie UK Trust wanted to ensure it was enough to make a difference for the winning young business (£10,000.) This was not a grant, Carnegie UK did not want anything in return other than for the winning business to stay in touch and feedback their progress on a bi-annual basis. Arron Drake was the lucky recipient of the TestTown 2014 prize fund with his business ‘Zymurgorium’, Manchester’s first craft distillery, brewery and meadery. The name has taken its inspiration from the word ‘Zymurgy’ – the science of brewing and ‘emporium’ – a shop selling various items.

“Aaron used the investment to set up a production facility for his business.”

All of Aaron’s products are made mainly out of local foraged or grown produce and each has a historical or educational meaning. ‘My inspiration not only comes from nature but also of my love of culture, variation and science (which gives a clue as to the strange brand name).’

Aaron used the investment from TestTown to attract support from other local agencies, and has used this investment to set up a production facility for his business. He now successfully trades to the boutique wholesale market in the North West, and sells to events and festivals. As well as continuing to create and expand his range, he also hopes to offer tours, talks and lessons to the public once his premises are fully fitted out.

More Information

  • info@zymurgorium.com
  • http://zymurgorium.com/
  • https://www.facebook.com/zymurgorium/
  • https://twitter.com/zymurgorium

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Words of Advice

  • I also felt that the event could have been more rigorously promoted, particularly during the three market days. It became apparent that the public were not aware of the event taking place in their high street and that they did not understand what it was for. This could have been tackled by posters throughout the town and in shop windows in the lead up and during the event.

    TestTown 2015 Participant

  • The younger generation is the future, so spending the time to encourage them to care and solve problems regarding the high street is a wonderful step forward.

    TestTown 2014 Participant

  • We underestimated a lot or things which needed to be considered for the units and ended up doing the cleaning etc. for a couple on our own. All a good learning curve though for future initiatives and we’d make sure we added more lead in time to them.

    TestTown 2014 Host

Highlights from the recent years

Five Ways To Supercharge Your TestTown

We believe there are five things which would Supercharge your TestTown:

  1. Every town should create a clear, supported pathway into trading and opening up a shop  for new town centre entrepreneurs.
  2. Every town should have a permanent pop-up facility in a viable trading space which offers flexible lease arrangements up to a year for new town centre entrepreneurs to learn.
  3. Every town should work, within their means, to reduce financial barriers in reduced rates and rents for new traders during their first year of business.
  4. Every town should carry out a regular (every five years) entrepreneur-led consultation which would feed into a business-led strategy for town centre development and business support.
  5. Every town should develop a hyperlocal cross-sector partnership to lead local innovation, ensuring that agencies, businesses, and residents are all powerful in leading local development.