Lallemand Brewing Quarterly Newsletter – issue 5

When I was asked to write on the topic of Quality for this latest edition of our “we brew with you” newsletter, I accepted with pleasure since the focus on continuous improvement of ‘quality’ has been the main driver of our growth at Lallemand. Indeed meeting, or exceeding, the expectations of customers with respect to quality is the essence of any business success. What may be less obvious is that complaints are important and helpful in the pursuit of continuous quality improvement. Indeed, if one listens to them attentively and seeks systematically to find ways to resolve the issues raised by such complaints one finds that the customer who complains has helped the supplier improve his product or service by highlighting potential gaps between his expectations and the experience. The efforts to correct the identified weaknesses will often succeed and this improves the quality of products and services for all customers (not only for the ones that have helped by complaining who initially raised concerns). Each time one develops a new product or enters a new market one may not always understand all the conditions of use or the expectations of new customers but thanks to their complaints and compliments we can improve the ‘quality’ of one’s products (sometimes by simply conveying the limitations to the products performance such that the expectations and methods of use can be adjusted). Lallemand Brewing, offering an increasing variety of strains of yeasts and bacteria in a convenient dry form with the added support of our ‘we brew with you’ team is well positioned to continuously improve the quality of its products and advice and so help brewers to offer an increasing choice of tasty and interesting beverages. This focused attention on the quality of our products and advice will be the essential element of our common growth!

Editorial by Jean Chagnon
Senior VP, special advisor and former CEO, Lallemand Inc.