INVENTORY SOFTWARE
Software unleashes inventory solution for liqueur manufacturer When Mr Black liqueur started making inroads into the beverage market, it needed a hand to help keep up with increased demand. Enter Unleashed Software. Food & Beverage Industry News explains.
W
hen coffee nerd Tom Baker joined forces with Philip Moore in 2013, they probably didn’t realise within five years they would have an awardwinning product on their hands. Moore, the distiller, and Baker, a designer by trade, both loved coffee and decided that consuming it in a liqueur form had yet to be perfected, and thus Mr Black was born. Brewed on the Central Coast of New South Wales at Distillery Britannica, Mr Black has not so much found a niche in the coffee liqueur market but taken it by storm. Mr Black is a cold brew that has made headway into the UK and US. Five years ago it won a gold medal at the London Spirit Show and has continued to collect silverware on a
Mr Black has proven to be a huge success in the US. 34 Food&Beverage Industry News | February 2020 | www.foodmag.com.au
regular basis. Mr Black operations manager, Rick Roper, can see only good things in the future for this Australian-based beverage. “In 2017, Mr Black was launched in the US and has now established itself as the biggest selling Australian spirit there,” said Roper. “It is highly regarded and is developing a strong following coast-to-coast.” The product itself is cold-brew, pressed coffee using speciality lot Arabica beans from Colombia and Kenya blended with high-quality grain spirit to make the final product that you see today.” However, with that growth came logistics issues. In order to keep on top of the bureaucracy of running the business, Roper knew the company needed something to
complement its simple inventory system, so decided to invest in Unleashed Software. Like Mr Black, Unleashed has a good reputation within its market. Roper said Mr Black needed a system that would handle the increased throughput, product size and range as it started to grow. This was because it became apparent that if something wasn’t put in place soon, the ability to keep on top of the increasing volume of product could get out of hand. “Prior to implementing Unleashed, we were only using Xero but found it inadequate for the business because it couldn’t handle manufactured items,” he said. “Xero is a great accounting system but without a bill of material structure, it can’t assemble finished
