Wine on tap? From a keg? Yes indeed, and Free Flow Wines has developed a flourishing business packaging and distributing wine in this manner.
It works with almost 250 wineries, has a presence in 49 of the 50 U.S. states and holds relationships with more than 300 wholesalers. Free Flow pivoted its business model to distribution in 2013, after initially selling its own wine in kegs.
The switch presented a series of hurdles for Free Flow, such as managing returned kegs—which isn’t an issue with wine packed in bottles—and the complexity involved with shipping some 85,000 kegs throughout the US each year. Another issue: Quality control. Kegs are filled at individual wineries, not centrally by Free Flow, requiring a close working relationship at each site.
Needing a scalable software system for inventory management, work order & assemblies and financials, Free Flow chose cloud ERP applications from NetSuite.
The software suite allowed it to scale the business dramatically, achieving 300 percent annual revenue growth. Free Flow expects to distribute the equivalent of 300,000 cases of wine during 2015. The data generated from keg movements will provide deeper insight into end-user consumption and potentially new business models as well.
And as an added benefit, Free Flow’s keg distribution model means millions fewer glass wine bottles are ending up in landfills.
Want to know more about Free Flow's story? Read the full case study here.
