CIO50 Australia 2024: Darrel van Dort, Beerfarm

Name: Darrel van Dort
Title:  Chief Operations & Information Officer
Company: Beerfarm
Commenced role:  March 2022
Reporting line: Board
Member of the executive team: Yes
Technology Function: 80, 4 direct
 
Despite the rapid growth of Australia’s craft brewing industry in recent decades, its embrace of digital solutions has lagged.
 
Recognising this, Beerfarm, an independent Western Australia-based beer brewery, embarked on an ambitious multi-year technology transformation aimed at empowering its people, streamlining production, and elevating its product.
 
Chief operations and information officer Darrel van Dort, who joined the brewery in March 2022, has been pivotal in this digital overhaul.
 
Over the last two years, van Dort developed a roadmap with well-defined objectives, carefully integrated with broader business priorities like growth and operational efficiency.
 
As the brewery shifted into growth mode, he ensured the transformation was focused, efficiently resourced, and aligned with the company’s strategic goals.
 
With over 600 craft breweries employing around 4,000 people across the country, Australia’s craft beer scene has evolved into a serious business.
 
This process involved a comprehensive review of every department from marketing, sales, people, finance, production, venue operations, to procurement.
 
“Every technology rollout came with a tailored training plan to ensure employees understood their role in the transformation, its importance, and how it fed into the brewery’s larger growth strategy,” says van Dort.
 
“This approach fostered strong buy-in from leadership, leading to trust, motivation, and confidence in the company’s direction.”
 
According to van Dort, brewing is a blend of chemistry, physics and sensory, combined with raw materials that contribute to the finished product.
 
“This has historically been a manual process including production, scheduling and experimentation,” he says.
 
 
Creating and refining recipes
 
However, this raises the risk of inferior and inconsistent products and inefficiency.
 
To counter this, van Dort and his team introduced NetSuite Crafted, enterprise resource planning software that creates and refines recipes by analysing sensory evaluation data, which predicts the characteristics of beer (bitterness, colour, flavour, and body).
 
“Through multiple gathered data points and analysis, Beerfarm can now make calculated decisions to allow for experimentation with more unique ingredients and a consistently higher quality,” he says.
 
Greater visibility on its brewing performance and the raw materials used has resulted in the business winning notable accolades, such as the ‘Consistency of Excellence Award’ for Beerfarm’s IPA in 2022 and ‘Beer of the Year’ in the WA Food Guide Awards in 2023, and Gold for Beerfarm’s new release Lager at the 2024 Australian Independent Beer Awards notes van Dort.
 
But there was more to the digital transformation for the independent brewer.
 
Delivering efficiencies and consistency
 
In May 2024, Beerfarm acquired Feral Brewing Co’s production assets in Perth. While the acquisition enables Beerfarm to triple its production, having multiple sites created the challenge of ensuring product quality and consistency.
 
Van Dort says the challenge was magnified by its plans to target national liquor distributors like BWS, Dan Murphy’s and Liquorland to stock its products.
 
These national retailers require consistency and quality of products at an attractive price point.
 
“Through Netsuite (and other automated equipment), Beerfarm can leverage multiple data analytics that the system provides,” van Dort says. “This will ensure all its facilities deliver efficiency and product consistency.”
 
Access to larger, automated equipment is essential as the business seeks to gain the business of national liquor distributors.
 
“The enhanced efficiency along with product consistency has also attracted a broader customer base and created a stronger loyalty among existing customers, leading to growth in what has been a tough period in the industry,” says van Dort.
 
Navigating new markets with data
 
Another challenge he faced was Beerfarm’s need for detailed data on sales and demographics, particularly in new markets.
 
Without this insight, expanding beyond the Metricup, Western Australia site posed significant risks for the business.
 
To counter this, van Dort and his team introduced
BrandPrint and Power BI intelligence to capture and analyse its account and customer data, SKU performance/sales rate, and volumes.
 
“This helps the team better to understand customer preference, product expansion or discontinuation, and inform expansion plans for existing footprint and future ones including the east coast of Australia and internationally, including Singapore,” he says.
 
Digitising the customer experience
 
Alongside the need to drive efficiency and consistency for the business, customer expectations also lie.
 
Customer demands are ever-evolving and in line with on-demand services and products. 

In response, van Dort introduced Shopify, an e-commerce platform and third-party personalisation engines.
 
“This will enable a more personalised customer experience,” says van Dort. “Customers will receive tailored product recommendations based on previous purchasing history.”

Over the past two years, the transformation of customer experiences has helped with the rise in beer sales, notes van Dort.
 
He also says it has “helped the shopping experience to become a more relevant, convenient, and engaged one, allowing Beerfarm to meet progressive consumer expectations.” 
 
Trust and transparency
 
During Beerfarm’s digital transformation, van Dort says being open and transparent built trust with key stakeholders and the wider team.
 
“All of Beerfarm’s staff were made aware of the changes in advance and why they were necessary,” he says.
 
They were brought along on the journey and could provide feedback on their pain points.