Umbrella is an independent producer of craft ciders and ginger beer, based in London's only working cider house in Bethnal Green. We sat down with Matt, founder and Managing Director, to find out how Breww has changed the way they run their business.
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Can you tell us a bit about your role at Umbrella?
I'm the founder and Managing Director. I oversee everything — logistics, production, all the admin. We've only got four employees: one guy managing the taproom, a driver on the road doing deliveries, a brewer, and me. My job is making sure they can all do what they need to do, but I also get stuck in wherever I'm needed. If we're short on drivers, I'll jump in a van. If we need to fill kegs, I'll start filling kegs. You do everything when you're a small business.
How were you managing things before Breww?
Badly, I'd say. We had systems we'd built ourselves on spreadsheets to log production and ingredients. Deliveries were handled in a separate third-party app. Invoicing was done in Sage. So we had all these different tools that didn't talk to each other.
If a customer asked for an invoice and a delivery note, I'd have to go into two different applications just to give it to them. And taking an order meant creating an invoice in Sage and then duplicating that effort by creating a delivery in a separate app. It was very labour-intensive — you had to enter a lot of information manually, and it just took a huge amount of time to stay on top of it all.
What was the biggest pain point?
There were a few. The admin duplication was a constant drain, but keg tracking was a real problem. Before Breww, we had absolutely no idea where our kegs were. We just lost track of them. Other companies would accidentally collect them, pubs would close and the kegs would end up in a cellar somewhere. Each keg is around £70, and you need hundreds of them at any reasonable scale — so it's a huge asset moving around your customers, and if you don't know where it is, you quickly lose control of it.
What made you decide to bring everything into one system?
We were wasting so much time on admin that it was pulling us away from the core of the business — producing, selling, and delivering. We needed to find a way to be more efficient without increasing our prices. The hospitality market is tough right now; pubs are dealing with rising National Insurance, business rates, energy costs. In London, a pint is already £7. If we passed on every cost increase we face, it would be really problematic for our customers. So we've had to find efficiencies wherever we can, and consolidating everything into Breww was a big part of that.
How long did it take to get up and running?
There's definitely an initial investment of time. You have to input your customer data, preferred delivery windows, all your vessels, all your recipes. It takes a little while to get your head around all the different features. But once it clicks, it's pretty seamless.
What do you use most day to day?
Pretty much everything — apart from the CRM.
We use the delivery software with the AI route optimisation add-on every single day. It takes each customer's preferred delivery times and the most efficient route, factors in historic traffic, and just works it out instantly. We use production every day too — creating batches, logging which ingredients go into them, monitoring ABV, tracking which kegs those batches go into and then where they go. And invoicing every day as well. Now when I create a sales invoice in Breww, the delivery is automatically created at the same time. No duplication.
The keg tracking we use daily too. Every keg is scanned when it's filled, when it's delivered, and when it comes back empty. We know exactly where everything is at any point.
How has it changed things on the production floor specifically?
It's made a real difference to how the brewer works. Before, he'd have to stop what he was doing, go and sit at a computer, open everything up, and manually enter information. Now he can just do it on his phone as he's working. If he's filling from a tank, he can log it in five minutes right there on the floor. That time saving adds up significantly across the whole day.
There's also the cleaning records — you can't start a new batch until the vessels have been marked as cleaned in the app. So it acts as a prompt for the brewer, and it means nothing gets missed.
How easy is it to keep an eye on the whole business?
Very easy. I check the dashboard multiple times a day to see where we are against our revenue targets. It also shows me which customers haven't ordered in a while, so I can follow up with them. And during shift handovers — if someone's coming in who wasn't there the day before — they can just open the app and immediately see what's in each tank, what's been cleaned, what's been done. I don't have to ring anyone to find out what's going on.
It also gives you confidence that you're not missing steps. The app won't let you move forward until the previous stage is completed. So you're not going to turn around months later and find out a batch record wasn't filled in properly.
What about proof of delivery — has that helped with customer disputes?
Yes, really useful. If a customer ever says they didn't receive a keg, we can show them exactly who signed for the delivery and a photo of the proof of delivery. It's almost impossible for them to dispute. And if a keg goes missing, we can follow up with the customer with a full delivery record to hand.
What's the biggest overall difference Breww has made?
I'd say we've probably saved the equivalent of a full admin person in terms of time.
I'd say we've probably saved the equivalent of a full admin person in terms of time. Each individual saving might seem small, but across production, deliveries, invoicing, keg tracking — it all adds up enormously. We can now focus on what we're actually here to do: making, selling, and delivering our products.
What would you say to another drinks producer considering Breww?
Once it's in place, you'll be so happy!
Go for it. Block out some time to get it set up properly and get everyone up to speed — it does require that initial effort. But once it's in place, you'll be so happy, because you'll save yourself so much unnecessary admin and it will improve all your systems: your tracking, your production records, your delivery processes. All of it.
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