Does Artificial Intelligence make sense for your brand today?
Several clients recently have asked us whether Artificial Intelligence was important to their craft beverage business. There is no simple answer to that question, so we dug a little deeper into use cases that may warrant a little AI help:
There are many other questions we could ask, but these are the ones that have prompted longer discussions around the why and how of Artificial Intelligence. There are free tools out there to manipulate photos or create videos or draft social media content (remember last year when we reviewed early entrants on the scene?). But our clients are asking if they should invest more time and resources into making Artificial Intelligence part of your business. In most cases the answer is no, the time is not yet right to bring AI tools into the fold.
Except for one client: Propagate Lab of Golden, CO.
What makes Propagate Lab different from the rest of our craft beverage clientele? On the surface, they’re a yeast propagating facility providing raw ingredients to seltzer, sake and cider makers and brewers, not a producer themselves. They focus on quality yeast with next-day delivery and expert customer care. And they offer a library of over 120 yeast strains spanning the most popular to the most obscure. But most of all, they’re passionate about yeast, sharing the intricacies of attenuation and flocculation with anyone who will listen 😉 Founder Matthew Peetz, a scientist and Director of Regis University’s Applied Craft Brewing Program, has amassed so much information about yeast performance and output, he created an application for the brewing industry called Yeast Buddy to help others navigate the space.
This was our Ah-Ha moment in AI: a practical use case where we used Artificial Intelligence tools to parse the decades of experience and knowledge Matthew and his team bring to the industry. Finally, we saw an application of AI that makes sense! So, the team at Market Your Craft set out to better understand how to design a conversational Artificial Intelligence front end to volumes of data on the back end. We quickly landed on building a chatbot feature into the propagatelab.com website that would help answer any questions visitors might have about their fermentation, pairing them with the perfect yeast for the job.
Built on the WordPress.com platform, the propagatelab.com site features a catalog of available yeast with descriptions, specifications, and verified customer reviews and the ability to buy using WooCommerce. After reviewing a dozen plugins and services, we landed on Sendbird.com’s AI ChatBot to help add a conversational chat feature as an overlay to all the data.
With the AI ChatBot tool we were able to create an application which uses the OpenAI GPT-4o engine in a conversational chat environment launched from the homepage. Users are prompted with a couple sample queries (“What services to you offer?”) to help communicate the idea of an interactive experience. We used commands in plain English language to help refine the experience. For example, we helped define the audience for the bot so answers could be a little more tailored to the craft beverage business (“Your users are seeking assistance with product information, purchases, and general inquiries about the store. They are likely individuals involved with craft beer, craft seltzer, craft sake or craft cider.”). You stylize your chat, including naming your bot, adding an image and color palette, etc. The bot was trained using the website and spreadsheets containing product specs, performance, and related data (currently you can select URLs, files, Notion databases, Google Drive content, and Salesforce data, with more connections in the works). And then we used the </> Embed Code to add it to the functions.php file on the website (embeds also available for Shopify, Wix, Squarespace, and non-pagebuilder sites).
Give Artificial Intelligence a try at propagatelab.com. Interested in helping visitors navigate a large amount of data on your own website? The team at Market Your Craft is happy to share what we’ve learned and even help set up your first AI ChatBot. Let’s talk!
After launching the new website and Yeast Buddy chatbot earlier this month, it was time to notify the industry of the value-added service now available at propagatelab.com. We have always believed in the power of press to help build awareness and drive traffic and sales for breweries, wineries, distilleries, and other makers, and the same is true for suppliers and a business-to-business (B2B) audience. So, we helped Matthew and the team draft a press release that was sent out to journalists and trade publications last week. Please find that below.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Media Contact: Matthew Peetz
Propagate Lab
Recommended by LinkedIn
(720) 724-4235
Propagate Lab Puts Artificial Intelligence to Work for Brewers
New Website Features AI Tools to Spark Conversation Around Yeast
Golden, CO (August 13, 2024) – Today, Propagate Lab, a world-class yeast propagating facility for the beverage industry, announced they have launched a new website featuring Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools for crafting award-winning beers, seltzers, sakes, and ciders. Trained in the science of yeast propagation and a decade in business, a conversational bot named, “Yeast Buddy,” helps makers select and purchase the perfect pitch for their project.
“Beverage producers are rapidly expanding their tasting room and retail offerings to meet changing drinker behavior,” says Matthew Peetz, CTO and Founder of Propagate Lab. “We’re scientists, not marketers, so we engineered a way to help. Now the industry has a tool to discover the yeast fit for their fermentation.”
“The team at Propagate Lab makes our job easier,” says Jan Chodkowski, Head Brewer at Our Mutual Friend Brewing Company in Denver, CO. “Matthew’s team has always provided superior yeast and expert care during the sale. Now their website is a vital resource during the recipe creation process.”
Propagate Lab offers a library of over 120 different yeast strains, each going through rigorous quality control testing prior to sale. The redesigned website uses AI to make finding the perfect yeast even easier, featuring a conversational chat to guide customers to the strain that delivers their desired characteristics like flavor and target alcohol. Built on a foundation of internal knowledge and documentation, this Large Language Model (LLM) conversational AI tool will learn and evolve over time to make buying yeast a breeze. Give AI a try at propagatelab.com.
About Propagate Lab Founded by Matthew Peetz, a scientist and Director of Regis University’s Applied Craft Brewing Program, Propagate Lab supplies superior quality yeast with next-day delivery and expert customer care for the craft beverage industry. With a full-service facility located in Golden, CO, Propagate has since 2018 helped seltzer, sake and cider makers and brewers alike achieve award-winning results. Learn more at propagatelab.com.
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We encourage you and your team to consider crafting a one-page press release quarterly to stay top-of-mind with journalists and local, regional, and even nationwide media friendlies (read, those who are particularly fond of writing about craft beverage). You can use the above as a template for your own release, incorporating an attention-grabbing headline; 2-3 paragraphs with a couple quotes; a call-to-action; and boilerplate footer about your business. If you have a list of contacts who have written about your craft beverage business in the past, start there with your outreach, then consider trade associations, specialty publications, lifestyle and local news, and similar outlets. Journalists are always looking for relevant content for their readers! And if you’re interested in taking a more serious approach to public relations, check out our publication titled, “Newsworthy: A Step-By-Step Guide to Press Releases,” available for purchase and immediate download on marketyourcraft.com.