2020 Young Enterprise group, ‘Suffolk Schooners’, taps into new lockdown market with sustainable glasses

9th December 2020

By Year 12’s Sophie, Marketing Director and Deputy Managing Director of Suffolk Schooners:

Woodbridge School’s Young Enterprise (YE) entrepreneurs have created a new company, ‘Suffolk Schooners’, which launched on the first of December, selling novelty sized three-quarter-pint schooner glasses, to bring an element of fun and sophistication to drinking in your living room. By fitting in a full can or bottle of beer perfectly. Suffolk Schooners has already sold out of its first consignment of stock and has reordered, in anticipation for opening up sales to the wider public, as Christmas approaches.

Suffolk Schooners – made up of 15 Year 12 students at the School – is getting ready for a festive influx of sales, after finding a product to market in the face of closed pubs and bars, ensuring that everyone’s favourite tipple can still be enjoyed in style at home, in a schooner glass. Moreover, Suffolk Schooners is committed to a 100% plastic-free product and packaging, with a rustic design of brown paper packages tied by the group with string.

Having carried out their own market research, Suffolk Schooners identified this type of glass as popular with local microbreweries and craft beer manufacturers, which understand the benefits of the three-quarter measure for keeping the drink colder and aerating the beverage.

Suffolk Schooners’ Managing Director, Year 12’s George, said:

“The Woodbridge School Young Enterprise team has had its challenges in 2020, as the normal routes to market have not been available to us.

“However, our team has been resilient and we have identified the schooner glass as the ideal product for our market, as it is very attractive and saleable to a wide audience. It also holds a whole can of drink perfectly, giving that ‘full-glass feeling’ that we all need at the moment.

“The Suffolk Schooners team is excited for our main sales period to begin, so that we can grow our product further and spread the ‘full-glass feeling’ with our community.”

Unfortunately, due to the global pandemic, Suffolk Schooners’ sales have been pushed online, instead of the usual avenues of Christmas markets and local fairs, and the team has had to work together to overcome this lack of face-to-face selling. They have done this with some ingenuity, by creating an email delivery system via Suffolk.Schooners@gmail.com, through social media, and by using connections to local businesses, through which to promote and sell their products.

Suffolk Schooners has also negotiated vouchers from small businesses for craft beer, and free Adnams crisps, to give away with their glasses, so that everyone has something to look forward to diving into and get that ‘full-glass feeling’.

The glasses are manufactured by a wholesaler, which the YE team ensured met its ethical principles, such as not using plastic in either its product or its packaging – only cardboard – and negotiated prices and quantities with them.

Suffolk Schooners has produced all the packaging itself, hand-making the labels and tags that accompany the glasses, and sourcing the packaging from small local businesses, who may be struggling in these trying economic times.

For further information on Suffolk Schooners, email Suffolk.Schooners@gmail.com or visit them on Facebook or Instagram.

Photo caption: The Woodbridge School 2020 Young Enterprise group – ‘Suffolk Schooners’ – celebrating the launch of their new schooner glass product. [CREDIT: WOODBRIDGE SCHOOL]

ENDS

Note to Editors:

‘Suffolk Schooners’ is a company set up by a team of Year 12 students at Woodbridge School, who are taking part in its long-established Young Enterprise programme.

Young Enterprise is a national business competition, which is open to every school in the country. The programme involves setting up and running a business from September to June in Year 12. Students make all their own decisions, manage their own budgets, arrange their own meetings, appoint Directors to roles and sell their goods; this valuable experience provides students with the skills that will help them to stand out from their peers in the competitive environment beyond School. The competition allows students to develop their leadership skills, and provides an insight into how real companies work. Companies get to enter the Young Enterprise competition nationally and compete with over 35,000 students from across the UK.

Woodbridge School Young Enterprise companies have achieved high levels of success over the years, and have reached the national and regional finals of the competition on numerous occasions. https://www.woodbridgeschool.org.uk/extra-curricular/young-enterprise/