Lochlea ahead of ‘ambitious’ 2023 goals

Scotch whisky distillery Lochlea doubled its forecast sales in 2022 and is ‘slightly ahead’ of its 2023 targets.

More than £6 million (US$7.8m) was invested into creating Lochlea Distillery. Located at Lochlea Farm in Ayrshire, Scotland, the site started distilling in August 2018.

The inaugural whisky was launched in January 2022 and has been followed by a number of releases, including four annual seasonal launches, plus the first core whisky: Our Barley.

David Ferguson, commercial director at Lochlea, told The Spirits Business: “This year we’ve got, again, an ambitious growth plan to hit, so we’re on track with that right now, slightly ahead. We will at least meet that at the end of the year.

“In what’s been, for the industry, quite a challenging time, we’ve managed to join the market, get the first product out, and everything has been on allocation. It’s been a really good start.”

One challenge Ferguson notes is the competitiveness of the industry for a new distiller.

“A big focus for us this year is getting brand recognition and awareness, and just letting people know that we’re here,” Ferguson explained. “One of the things that’s been a bit tricky because we’re in quite a few different markets now, is allocating stock to each market and trying to be as fair as possible.

“The most recent release, we had 11 markets out of 20 ask for the full amount of stock. Obviously that’s not possible, and we try to be as fair as possible. It’s a positive place to be in, in some respects. But that’s a challenge when people want more than you can give them.”

At present, the distillery is capable of producing 200,000 litres of alcohol annually. “We can expand that with the existing setup,” Ferguson said.

Our Barley is the product Ferguson and the Lochlea team are keen to grow volume-wise. The remaining releases will remain on limited allocation.

Priority markets

The UK is a priority market for the company, one of 20 markets across Europe, North America and Asia Pacific.

A large part of Ferguson’s role when he joined the company was to build the brand’s market presence.

“We’ve got plans to go into another five or six markets next year,” Ferguson revealed. “We actually have a waiting list beyond that.

“We’ve got another set of markets where people are asking us to partner with them, but we just don’t physically have the stock, or size of team yet to go much further than that. But that will come; we’re planning for the next five years now.”

Lochlea has two more seasonal releases ready to launch later this year, and has just brought a cask-strength whisky to market four weeks ago.

The next SKU from the distiller is likely to come in early 2024, Ferguson said.

“We’ve got a really cool collaboration with a brewery, which will be something really amazing, quite unique,” he added. “And then we’ve got a delivery of casks, in fact, [this week], which will take us up to having 25 different cask types in the warehouse.”

New product development (NPD) and experimentation is important to Lochlea, particularly as a newer producer, Ferguson explained. Weekly NPD meetings take place to ensure ideas are aligned and current.

“We don’t want to do it for the sake of it,” Ferguson assured. “Everything we do ties into our story in some way.

“We’re a regenerative farm, so if it’s a seasonal, limited release and it’s during the fallow time (when the fields are left to recover), we want to reflect that in the final product. What’s the weather like at this time? What do we want to convey to the consumer with this product?

“We want to be very sustainable in the way that we treat the land.”

Core range development 

In terms of more additions to the core range, “that’s not something we’re discussing a lot right now”, Ferguson admitted. As the distillery amasses greater whisky stocks and more aged stocks, future core expressions will join the line-up once the time is right.

Furthermore, the seasonal launches will be phased out after four years; Lochlea is currently in year two of the seasonal releases.

Ferguson noted there will be age-statement whiskies in the future.

“If we get to 10 years and find the whisky is incredible, then perhaps that will become part of the core range,” he said. “But maybe it won’t be, or there’s not quite the volume we need. We don’t necessarily know how some of these casks will turn out; it will all come down to the quality of the liquid and bottling whisky when the time is right.”

Ferguson is excited about the number of new producers entering the Scotch whisky category, and the creativity that can bring to the industry.

“At the end of the day, it’s competition but it’s also such a collaborative industry that we work in,” he added. “Someone new appearing and bringing a brand new product to market is great, and I think it actually helps the other new distillers. It’s showing the consumer, potentially, a new flavour, or perhaps even though there’s no big number on the bottle, it can still be very good whisky.

“We’re definitely one of the youngest companies in whisky, in terms of the average age of our team, and I think that’s a great perspective to bring to the industry. Hopefully that then translates through to our brand and the way we’re presenting ourselves. I think it’s a huge positive – and it seems like there are a lot of younger minds coming to the industry. It’s certainly not what it used to be and that’s a huge positive.”