Family run business is raffling company shares
The first Irish distillery to produce hand sanitizer when Covid arrived last year, is now the first distillery in Ireland to raffle part of the company.
Bronagh Conlon of Listoke Distillery says making hand sanitizer, “saved the business; we will always be doing hand sanitizer.”
Her daughter Sarah, who is Head of Sales, concurred saying, “we would not be sitting here without it.”
The county Louth company, whose Listoke 1777 gin has won awards, is returning to plans to expand overseas that were parked up due to Covid.
It is expanding into China and Russia with both its gin and whiskey and to boost the budgets for those launches, they came up with another first – to be the first Irish distillery to raffle 5 percent of their company.
Sarah said,”we always try and do something a bit inventive. I had seen raffles for houses and cars on social media and because we are a family company we have the ability to raffle 5 percent shares.”
Funds will go towards launches of both Listoke Gin and it’s new Wise Owl Whiskey (WOW), the latter being produced by the Great Northern Distillery in nearby Dundalk.
Sarah said the raffle also, “lets people be a part of what we are doing. If you don’t win you are still putting money into seeing an Irish business grow.”
They also watched as their gin and whiskey was stuck in the Suez Canal last month but that too is back on track for trade shows next month.
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The company has worked through Covid and lockdown which included seeing queues of people for their sanitizer when they began making it last March.
Sarah said, “I had never seen fear like it on people’s faces. They were coming from Waterford, from Roscommon. We would say ‘don’t travel, we will post it to you’. At one point we had to hire people to manage traffic.”
They have produced around 100,000 litres of sanitizer which is used in schools, hospital clinics and nursing homes and in addition they have donated up to 20 percent of it to groups working with the vulnerable.
“We donated it countrywide to the Simon Community, the St Vincent de Paul, the Peter McVerry Trust and locally to the Homeless Aid and the women’s shelters,” Sarah added.
To enter the raffle you must be over 18 and,”you will have a chance to win 5 percent of Listoke and with that the energy and the fun that we have here! It is a genuine 5 percent, a C share, so you are not expected to work or be on the board but you will get a dividend and be part of our journey,” Bronagh said.
The draw is on July 9th and tickets cost £20. There are runner up cash prizes of £10,000 and £5,000. They hope to sell in the region of 10,000 tickets.
