December is the month in which we take a look back and take stock of what has happened throughout the year, before we decide on what our resolutions will be for the forthcoming year. And that is exactly what we have done here at Hijos de Rivera.
To be perfectly honest, in this family we do not really need too many excuses to enjoy a good celebration, but the truth is that 2018 has made it easy for us by giving us a bunch of reasons to bid farewell to the year with a bang.
Here are just a few of them:
Our brand Estrella Galicia featured, for the very first time, on the Ranking de las Mejores Marcas Españolas(Ranking of the Best Spanish Brands); a list of the 30 most important brands in Spain, according to their brand value, that follows the well-known and globally certified criteria employed by the Best Global Brands. This acknowledgement meant important support for our company strategy in recent years, and our commitment to expansion, which according to Interbrand, adds an estimated brand value of 288 million euros to our brand Estrella Galicia.
Our CEO, Ignacio Rivera, was the winner of the 22ndedition of the EY Entrepreneur of the Year in Spain, which seeks to acknowledge and support the entrepreneurial work carried out by businesspeople, due to his work at the head of our company- a family business with over 110 years of history and present in over 50 countries.
We’ve immersed ourselves in entrepreneurship! We once again boosted our Digital Transformation Plan with the launch of The Hop, an entrepreneurship programme designed to back innovative start-ups whose main aim is to promote innovation and open creativity eco-systems that add to the company value chain and impact all its areas.
We held the I Convención de Negocios LATAM (I LATAM Business Convention) one of the most special corporate events in the history of Estrella Galicia Brazil, with the aim of strengthening our relations in Brazil and the other countries in Latin America. A total of 24 distributors from Uruguay, Argentina, Paraguay, Bolivia, Peru, Chile and Colombia took part in the event, during which we shared the main strategic business lines of our next Triannual Plan, highlighting the importance of Brazil and the rest of the LATAM countries.
In 2018 we launched a total of four special editions within the Fabrica de Cervezas Estrella Galiciaproject, a seasonal range of beers with progressive launches of a great range of recipes whose common factor are the natural and 100% Galician ingredients.
The first launch of the year was Percebes da Costa da Morte, (Gooseneck barnacles from the Costa da Morte) followed by Pimientos de Padrón(Padrón Peppers) and Calabaza y Vainilla(Pumpkin and Vanilla). The fourth and last edition of the year opted for chestnuts as the key ingredient, to celebrate the magosto season. All the editions created huge interest among our consumers and sold out in a matter of hours.
We were at the largest young talent festival in the world for the very first time: Unleash. This is an event designed and set up for and by a whole new generation, which every year has over 1000 attendees aged 18-30, from all around the world. This year we took advantage of Unleash 2018 to connect with new generations and transmit the values that define us as an employer brand.
We inaugurated La Probeta, an innovation and customer experience space in Madrid where all kinds of development of new drinks for Custom Drinks and La Tita Rivera takes place. A “laboratory” in which to motivate the client with a new consumption experience based on twelve drinks developed by us and constantly rotated.
We presented our new Concept Big Craftpremises: an innovative model of Cerveza de Bodega premises designed to give beer lovers access to everything our product portfolio has to offer. Throughout 2018 we have inaugurated three Concept Big Craft premises: the Mercado de O Berbés, in Vigo, and La Galiciana market, in Santiago de Compostela.
We also launched the Campeonato de Mixología Maeloc(Maeloc Mixology Contest), a competition that rewards the bartenders that can demonstrate the greatest skill when creating cocktails with our Maeloc ciders. Its aim is to raise awareness of the potential and versatility of our ciders when making cocktails for the different parts of the day.
Our company has once again demonstrated its commitment to society via a number of different social responsibility initiatives, which have been hugely successful. We broke the record of money raised at the XX Memorial Moncho Rivera, raising €32,000 that was donated to the Cocina Económica and the Banco de Alimentos of A Coruña (A Coruña Food Bank). The latter also received the €8,175 raised at the fourth edition of the carrera 5KM Solidarios(5km Charity Race) organised by our Volunteering Team which, with many new members this year, is working extremely hard to carry out a multitude of charity events, among which are the “Una Sonrisa por Navidad” (“A Smile for Christmas”) when gifts are collected for children who are in danger of social exclusion in those areas we operate. Our cultural sponsorship programme, 12 miradas :: Riverside, continues to bring art and creativity to our lives with the 12 artists that took part in its third edition, and the Mercado de la Cosechacontinued to give a voice to innovative initiatives that boost Galicia’s competitive development and rural sustainability.
Music moves us. We are convinced that live is better with music and that is why a large part of our effort are focused on taking music everywhere, introducing new acts or simply offering the public the chance to enjoy great live music. We have once again set a soundtrack to this year and the list of festivals, concerts, venues, chords, and magical moments is almost never-ending.
We held the ninth edition of the SON Estrella Galicia season, which this year also featured great moments in the United Kingdom and Brazil; we continued to enjoy the Ciclo 1906, which turned eleven; and we again backed the Maketón Maeloc programme, where the work of local artists and bands was at the centre. We have also been present at such important festivals like PortAmérica, Resurrection Fest Estrella Galicia and Festival Noroeste Estrella Galicia, and we have also held the second edition of the SONEstrella Galicia Posidonia festival.
