Handle manufacturer taps new markets

When you think Canadian exports, ceramic handles for beer taps are not the first things to come to mind. But they’re front-and-centre for Chrislan Ceramics and Decorating Inc., based in Maple Ridge, B.C. It’s the world’s largest ceramic handle manufacturer, with brewers in Canada, the United States, England, Australia and Latin America using their custom-made handles.

The family-owned business, founded by three brothers in 1987, wasn’t always producing ceramic tap handles. It started with decorating glassware for brewers. But then large-volume manufacturers began pricing them out of business. “That didn’t bode well for growth,” says Alan Laninga, one of the company’s founders.

At the time, ceramic tap handles weren’t widely manufactured in North America. Chrislan was working with a single supplier, decorating and selling them to brewers in small quantities, alongside glassware. “We were getting about 20 or 30 blank handles at a time,” he says. “It wasn’t so much in vogue at the time, so we decided to make them vogue.”

Seeing potential in the craft brewing market, particularly in the U.S., Chrislan shifted away from glassware and began making ceramic handles in 1990. “A huge turning point for the company was manufacturing the handles ourselves,” says Laninga. “We had the decorating process all intact but didn’t know how to manufacture the handles yet. We learned by trial and error. You can imagine how rocky the first six months were. We’d need orders ready to go out but instead of tap handles we had puddles.”

You won’t see any puddles at the Chrislan plant nowadays. The company has about 500 clients and more than 40 employees and produces up to 19,000 handles a month, exporting about 90% of them. It designs handles for Guinness, Amstel, Blue Moon and Stella Artois, among others.

How did the U.S. become your largest market?

When we were first building our business, we looked at the market and thought craft brewing would be a good target. About 75% of our business is in the U.S. and that has more to do with their beer culture than anything else. They are very involved in craft brewing and they’re also very competitive. You see a lot of tap handles come on and off there because one brewer will offer [a bar or restaurant] a discount for a month, and then next month it’ll be a different brewer. Whereas if you go to England you don’t see that. But this is changing.

You also do business in Latin America, England and Australia. How did you branch out beyond the U.S. and Canada?

One of our largest clients in the U.S. was Guinness, which is now Diageo. We made the Guinness handle in the U.S. and with that expanded to the U.K. Now we produce Guinness handles worldwide and that brought us into new markets. Guinness is such a large brand that when [brewers] see their handles, they wonder where they came from and they give us a call.

What about reaching out to the clients who aren’t calling you in new markets? How do you get their attention?

It can be difficult to penetrate a market when you’re not in the country, and it does cost money to do it. First, you have to be well-versed in the new market. Find out what they’re doing in the local market around your product. All you have to do to get started is Google these days.

Then you have to find a way to get your product into that local market. It doesn’t matter how you do it. You might have it in a small trade show or even give some to a buyer. We will do that–give 50 handles to a brewer–and word gets around.

You also have to be flexible in order to make your product work in a different market. You have to be open and willing to change and listen to what international clients are telling you. A lot of times they don’t tell you what you want to hear. You might need to change certain portions of your product to fit that local market. For example, when we do tap handles in the U.S. they tend to like them large. But when we went to Australia they like them a lot smaller. It took us a while to figure it out. In Australia, they have a little plaque in front of the handle, but the Americans just have the handle.

What advantages has Chrislan experienced in new markets?

If you’re bringing a new product into a geographic location and that product is in demand, you can usually increase your margins. Your product will grow quite quickly compared to a traditional market because it’s new.

You also have clients here in Canada, about 10% of your business. What challenges are unique to working internationally?

One of the biggest challenges is financing. Whenever you’re dealing internationally you have to determine what kind of terms can you arrange with each client. You need to know how reputable that client is. We’re very fortunate because brewers are very stable.

Specifically for us, timing is always an issue. When dealing globally, brewers take a lot of time to think about inventory but not their tap handles. But they all need them. We have to be very aggressive with all our clients and keep them informed with inventory stocking levels. We have to analyze international clients’ needs to see when they’re going to need handles. There’s often such a time delay to get handles to our customers. It can take a long time to ship, so what we’ll do is actually stock the product here in Vancouver for them so when they need them we can send them right away.

How do business contacts respond to you as a Canadian?

I’ve been all over the world, and I can tell you that being Canadian is a huge advantage for us. It’s very easy to do business globally if you’re a Canadian company. People trust you.