Monday, November 26, 2007

When beer and shedworking meet

An interesting story by Scott Rochfort in the Sydney Morning Herald who writes: "The most logical business deal of the week goes to the West Australian boutique brewer Oz Brewing, which trumpeted its move into the shed sector. He continues: "
"The company, which listed last year with the plan to live up to its name - that is, brew beer - has since outsourced that responsibility and appears more excited about the "heavy demand" for prefabricated housing...But the loss-making company reckons it is on a winner, detailing a plan yesterday whereby it will fork out 20 million shares ($2 million) and $1.5 million cash for a 50.1 per cent stake in Shedco Pty Ltd. It will pay another $400,000 for a portable house business, Eco Transportable, a company set up only three months ago."
The company claims: "The decision will generate a second and immediate cornerstone revenue driver for the Fremantle-based brewer and expose Oz Brewing to the burgeoning urban and rural demand for sheds, garages and prefabricated houses and offices."

5 comments:

  1. Anonymous3:02 AM

    If only they could expand into a lifestyle franchise scheme. I can see it now..

    Along the pathways of the worlds historic districts, some of the small villages and estates could have some of these micro-brew scale infrastructures to serve the growing human-scale tourism catagory. Walking or cycling along the paths, roaming the countryside. Staying and eating in either historic structures or micro-tecture. The mix of very old and solid, with the new and light, would be nice. The scale of each style would be comlimentary.

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  2. Anonymous9:25 AM

    I like it. I like it very much.

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  3. Anonymous10:07 PM

    So if someone who worked remotely and wanted to live in such an existance, they could use their solar battery assisted HumanPowweredViehicle/computer workstation office to migrate with their weather preferences. Sticking to the unbeaten (ie; not paved, aka; slow) path they could import their virtual income into the local economy. This minimal investment type of lifestyle would replace for many the burden of 20th century style asperations with the wealth of experience afforded by these reprioritized interestes and investments.

    Eventually there would even be a layer on Google Maps showing and assisting those on the slow paths.

    In your mind, where do you think such a vision is most likely to find early adopter interest and reward?

    Off the top of my head I would think Oxfordshire, Dordogne, Camino de Santiago de Compostela would seem like easy sells. Or maybe in those parts of Mexico or India that already have the long honered tradition of journeyscapes.

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  4. Anonymous6:01 PM

    Maybe this blog isn't the place for discussing these ideas.

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  5. Maybe not, but it is an interesting idea and fits in well with the general trend towards slow everything (including slow journalism as Susan Greenberg recently suggested). I think it's probably more likely to take off in the US rather than Europe (Oxfordshire is too small, the Camino is not an easy path to follow, the Dordogne maybe) but as wi-fi broadband access takes off, then that's a major barrier hurdled. Sheds on wheels do seem to be becoming more popular as does the whole idea of smaller living and there's maybe a gap in the market for something along the lines you mention - see some of Ben Tristem's experiences detailed on the internet for what is possible. Perhaps you should start up a blog/site and see how much interest there is out there. I'm sure there would be people interested in discussing it.

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