North coast native returns to build successful distillery
North Point Distillery produces a range of award-winning small batch, sustainable spirits that honour the heritage of Scottish distilleries and the history of the local area.
The business uses hand-selected whisky casks from local distilleries to mature and finish their rum. In addition to its own portfolio of spirits, including North Point Pilot Rum and Crosskirk Bay Gin, North Point also provides a full range of contract services. These include private bottling and labelling through to the development and distillation of own-label spirits for customers across the UK and beyond.
Based in Forss in West Caithness, North Point was co-founded by Struan Mackie and Alex MacDonald in early 2020. Struan is a former PwC consultant who has worked with a range of UK spirits and non-alcoholic beverage brands on business growth. A north coast native keen to create new opportunities in the area, he's tapping into his experience and industry insights to assemble a highly skilled professional team at North Point.
He says: “We are committed to keeping everything we do local. That’s why we’re a full-service distillery.There’s not a single activity that we do that’s not done within our building, so we’re retaining as much of that economic activity as we can within the community. We now have a nine-strong team and every single one of us is under the age of 30. We are creating exciting opportunities for young people here in the far north.”
Located on the former US Navy base, North Point Distillery sits in the shadow of the Dounreay site - the area’s biggest economic driver. As Dounreay is decommissioned, businesses like ours need to do our bit to create new jobs for the region.Struan Mackie, co-founder/managing director, North Point Distillery
Building foundations and new opportunities
North Point raised most of its seed investment from North America and Canada. At HIE, we've been delighted to support the business as it has developed.
They've succeeded in securing funding in both the first and second rounds of the Young Company Capital Investment Grant programme. They participated in our young entrepreneurs' mentoring programme IMPACT30, and support from the UK Kickstart scheme has enabled them to recruit several young people to work placements.
Most recently they have appointed a key member of their team with support through our Graduate Support Programme, which matches businesses with the skills they need.
Greg Benson, originally from East Kilbride, is a University of Strathclyde Chemical Engineering graduate. With a growing passion for distilling he went on to do the Brewing and Distilling MSc at Heriot-Watt. Prior to the post coming up with North Point he'd already cut his teeth on product development with Loan Wolf in Aberdeen, and had also worked in Delhi with Dewar's Whisky.
Having done a wee bit of freelance work with North Point, the creation of the full-time Project Distiller post - made possible for the business at that time thanks to the graduate funding support - was perfect for him.
Graduate Placement makes a real difference
Greg started with North Point in October 2021. This was a critical time for the business. They needed someone who could successfully experiment and create new spirits that were reflective of the brands they were winning. However, it was not just about the skills, they also had to make sure that they got the right person for the team culture.
The management team at North Point believes that one of their big differentiators is the quality of their people. Being able to employ Greg enabled North Point to build on already proven foundations to offer customers a new level of product and process innovation.
Struan says: “We win on people. We won a new product project from Northern Ireland to create a blended whisky that was a competitive tender across the whole of Scotland. We’ve won a gin project that was tendered across the whole of the UK and France. And the common theme is always the quality of our people.”
The Graduate Support Programme and the addition of Greg to the team has consolidated that and enabled North Point to leverage new bespoke activities for brands. It has allowed them to bring forward some of their plans and to really attack opportunities a lot quicker and with the skills that they need to do it.
Consumers are far more aware of the impact of their choices and about the sustainability and green credentials of the products they buy. So right from the start we decided sustainability had to be a core tenet of what we do.Struan Mackie, founder, North Point Distillery
Sustainability is at the heart of everything
The distillery is one of a handful in the UK to be powered by green energy, a major selling point in an industry dominated by the heavy use of fossil fuels. The stills, the first of their kind in terms of design, use electricity as a green alternative to steam or gas-fired stills. This is helping the business eliminate greenhouse gas emissions while also maximising efficiency.
All waste is environmentally disposed of – and the team plans to go one step further in the near future by working with a new waste to biogas plant based on the site, where distillery waste will eventually be converted into energy for on-site car charging points and low carbon energy for tenants of the local business park.
The Graduate Support Programme has allowed me to follow my passion in distilling, which is taking new recipe development from start to finish. Bringing new spirits through from concept to market is something I’ve always wanted to do.Greg Benson, project distiller, North Point Distillery
Greg's move from India to the Highlands and Islands
Having grown up in a city, and with a career path that most recently took him to Delhi, one of the world’s biggest urban centres, Greg had a lot to think about when this latest opportunity took him to rural Caithness in the far north of the Scottish Highlands. He said:
“To be honest, although my partner is from the North, I hadn't considered living in the area until the Graduate Support Programme, it has basically allowed me to come into this new distillery and into a role that is ideal for me."
Rural life was not something he grew up with but he's enjoying it so far. Whilst he might not have considered living and working in the area before, now that he's there and settled, he can see the advantages, and is very happy to stay!
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