New Brunswick craft cidery inks deal with Chinese grocery chain

A Fredericton cidery is about to go global.

Red Rover Craft Cider, the oldest craft cider company in New Brunswick, has inked a deal with a large Chinese grocery chain and the owner says the expansion will bring more jobs to New Brunswick

Adam Clawson owns the cidery and says his recent success will be going back into the province he calls home.

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“The amount of population here is limited and by creating a product that can be exported, and bringing in monies from other places in the world, we really expand the amount of disposable income that’s within the province,” said Clawson on Tuesday.

Greenland Business and Trade Group will sell the local craft cider in all 50 of their locations in China, and it will help Clawson’s burgeoning brewing business.

“The initial pilot program will be for the beginning of 2019 and if it’s successful, we’ll continue with larger purchases,” said Clawson.

“We’ll be able to start creating more cider for the export market and by doing that, we are actually going to need to hire on some more staff in 2019 and [2020].”

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Atlantic Canadian goods exported to China totaled more than $1.5 billion in 2017, according to Statistics Canada.

Clawson suggests other New Brunswick companies — from all sectors — look into the fiscal benefits of distributing their products internationally.

“China is one of the largest expanding markets with over 3 million people going from poverty to middle class every year and because of this, there’s a new appetite for really high-quality products,” he said.

“Not just in the alcohol sector but in the production sector, in general, we make great products here in this province and there really is a market that wants to buy high quality in China.”

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "Not just in the alcohol sector but in the production sector, in general, we make great products here in this province and there really is a market that wants to buy high quality in China."