New website and new jobs at Skinner's

September 28, 2007: Truro-based Skinner's Brewery has recruited two more employees to take its workforce up to 30 for the first time in its ten-year history.

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	l Skinner's Brewery retail manager Amy Heard with some of the products and merchandise for sale in the company's new online shop

It has also launched an online shop and an expanded range of drinks and related products for sale over the internet as part of an all-new state-of-the-art website.

Additional capacity has been installed and further heavy investment is being planned for this winter to meet the anticipated continued increase in demand. The company is looking to double its capacity in three years, with more new jobs in the pipeline.

It is currently enjoying sales increases of 45% for all its ales, with Betty Stogs and Cornish Knocker leading the way in volume, and with sales of other products also 35 to 40%.

The new website — www.skinnersbrewery.com — designed and constructed by Cornish web developers MicroAngelo, is highly animated and designed to be very accessible to all visitors to the site, including blind and other disabled people. It has also achieved maximum Google search efficiency.

As well as offering all Skinner's beers, lager and cider in any quantities, the online shop also features Cornish food products, clothes and other souvenir items — of its own and from other suppliers. The company is currently geared to deliver anywhere in the UK, Ireland and Channel Islands.

"We anticipate that 75% of our trade will continue to be done in Cornwall, where our heart is and where it will stay," said managing director Steve Skinner.

"Overall, we are just managing to cope with demand at the moment, and there is every indication that our business volumes will continue to grow quite substantially."

He added: "Above all, we are not forgetting our roots and the ongoing investment is concerned as much as anything with maintaining the high quality of our products and doing Cornwall proud. One of our two new employees is primarily concerned with quality control.

"I am particularly pleased that Cornish barley is playing such a big part in our success."

The company, set up by Steve and his wife Sarah, moved to its present premises in Newham Road — from a converted garage in the same road — in 2003. It claims to have won more awards than any other brewery in the South West.

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