Former CLEO Bachelor of the Year finalist Dustin Leonard has been extremely busy with his latest social enterprise that helps provide clean drinking water to African communities.
The former bachelor’s new wine label, Little Ripples, launched in September 2019, has experienced exponential growth in online sales during COVID.
Digital sales have boosted 3000 per cent since December last year thanks to socially-distanced online happy hours.
“There’s been a massively unexpected increase in online sales, with the digital channel accounting for the majority of sales. This was quite unexpected,” Mr Leonard told news.com.au.
“Our online sales alone are on track to break $100k this month,” he revealed.
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Prior to COVID, most of the label’s sales came from more than 350 bricks-and-mortar bottle shops and venues across New South Wales and Victoria until digital sales went gangbusters.
“Our sales in physical venues definitely took a hit during the pandemic, so we shifted more of our focus to DTC (direct-to-consumer) and have been thrilled with the uptake,” Mr Leonard told news.com.au.
“Aussies are really loving the convenience of having wine dropped off right at their door.”
The business is struggling to keep up with demand with sales going through the roof.
“As of this week, we’ve run out of stock of a few wines and are working urgently to bottle and restock,” he said.
The Sydney-based entrepreneur said it’s great to have something to celebrate this year.
“2020 hit everyone, but our digital sales platform allowed us to be a part of the answer,” he said.
Every sale counts, because every bottle of plonk sold in Australia provides a year worth of clean drinking water to a person in need in a developing community for an entire year.
The growth in online sales has turned wine into clean drinking water for thousands of people in developing communities in Africa.
“By catering for socially-distanced happy hours we also helped to protect the health, safety and education of those in developing communities,” he added.
Little Ripples partners with the BridgIT Water Foundation to identify communities most in need as well as facilitate the construction of a water well and implement a strategy to maintain and manage the well for at least 10 years.
In total, Little Ripples has aided the development and maintenance of eight wells over the past year since launching, providing more than 10,000 people with clean water for at least 10 years.
“We’re able to do this by digging new water wells and refurbishing broken water wells. We also allocate additional funds and have put systems in place with our water charity partner, BridgIT Water Foundation, to ensure the water wells will have a lifespan of 10 years plus,” he said.
“This year, the focus was on four Ugandan schools which were unable to reopen without clean water access under COVID restrictions,” he said.
The Zoom happy hours took the brand’s total impact to 100,000 years worth of clean drinking water for people in need.
COVID-19 has seen many companies forced to shut down or adapt to the ever changing climate. Wine and alcohol brands are among the many that turned to online to meet changing consumer demands, from social drinks to socially distanced drinks.
Although we may be over the panic-purchasing hump, the direct-to-consumer and direct-to-your-door trend is expected to live on, with alcohol e-commerce expected to grow by 42 per cent for 2020.
HERO FOR AFRICA
Little Ripples is not Mr Leonard’s first socially responsible business.
While still studying at uni, Mr Leonard started a company called HERO Condoms, which donated one condom to a developing country for each one sold in Australia.
“The HERO model is that for every condom we sell in Australia, we donate one condom to developing nations with the hope of stopping the spread of HIV,” he previously said.
After spending time in Africa, he had a mission to give away 500,000 condoms in Africa.
“The more I researched about HIV-AIDS in Africa, the more passionate I became about the cause. So I did a business plan and the numbers added up.”
