Get to Know Your Board Member: Nicole Todd
Five new board members joined the American Cider Association in 2020. We wanted to give you a chance to get to know them better. First up is Nicole Todd, who represents the Pacific Region, including California and Hawaii.
Where do you work and what is your position?
Santa Cruz Cider Co. in Santa Cruz, California. Owner/cidermaker/janitor.
Do you work in cider full time? If not, what is your other job?
Yes, I do full time cider for my company and part time brewer for a friend’s local brewery.
How did you get into cider?
We were looking to buy a house and toured a property with over two acres of apples and a tiny house. We did not end up buying it, but there was no one living in the house and it was harvest time, so we went back at night and filled our truck bed with apples. We pressed them into about 80 gallons of cider and shared with friends. Everyone liked what we were making so we went back and helped ourselves to more apples. Soon after, our friend Dave ended up buying that same piece of property and gave us free reign over the apples. It was then that we learned about the different varieties and qualities of each type and my love for apples blossomed.
Why did you decide to run for a position on the board?
I love the cider industry and everyone in it! All of the folks I have met in the industry are down to earth, hard working, real people. I wanted to be more involved in the cider community and help it grow.
What are your hopes for the future of the US Cider Industry?
That it will continue to grow and educate consumers about the wide variety of ciders available.
How do you describe your cider region?
I live in Apple City. No joke, a hundred years ago Watsonville, CA was the number one grower, packer, shipper of apples in the whole world, thus its nickname of Apple City. We have a lot of old apple orchards with 5th generation apple farmers still growing apples. While a lot of the orchards have since been taken out to make room for berries, we still have Martinelli’s being made locally and keeping the demand for our local apples. The Pajaro Valley is mostly flat with some rolling hills that lead into the Santa Cruz mountains. Orchards are planted all over the county with sizes ranging from one acre to 200 acre orchards.
What’s your favorite apple to work with and why?
I think there is something really special about the way Newtown Pippins grow in our area, I think there is a true terroir here. They are a good blending apple as well as good on their own. They cold store well and are great fresh off the tree too!
What is your favorite cider/food pairing?
Cider and cheese for sure! Especially a nice hard, salty cheese.
What is your favorite nature/cider pairing?
Beach and a dry cider on a hot day.
What would you like our members to know about you that they might not know?
I love dogs! I have always had them at home and the favorite part of my bar shifts is getting to pet the dogs other people bring in.
Get to know the rest of your board members at Who We Are.
📣 ACTION ALERT: Renew the Craft Beverage Modernization and Tax Reform Act
Cideries like yours are facing the harsh economic realities of a global pandemic. Congress needs to be proactive in supporting small businesses like yours right now, but they also need to protect you from further economic harm. In a normal year, raising Federal Excise Taxes could significantly damage our industry’s viability. In 2021, raising taxes could force hundreds of cideries to permanently close their doors. Join us in urging Congress to act urgently and make the Craft Beverage Modernization and Tax Reform Act permanent NOW.
This will impact all segments of the cider industry. It’s critical we work together in reaching out to lawmakers today or come January 1, your Federal Excise Taxes may go up significantly.
Please reach out to Congress today and tell them your business needs a break: Make the Craft Beverage Modernization and Tax Reform Act permanent!
Two New ACA Member Benefits
We admire hustle, but we hope that your ACA membership makes cidery life a little bit easier. We have two new benefits we’re eager to tell you about, plus some exciting things to look forward to!
1. 15% Discount off of CiderPros.com Job & Marketplace Listings
We’re honored to be a founding partner in CiderPros.com–a new jobs site for the cider industry. We’re thrilled to extend a 15% discount off of the cost of job and marketplace listings to our members. You can find the coupon code on our members page here (logging in required first step to access). We will update the code from time to time.
2. Cider Press List 101
If you are just ramping up your cider specific media outreach efforts, we’ve got a starter list to get you going. You can access the list here under our Marketing Tools section (logging in required first step to access). Thank you to the ACA Marketing Committee for curating this list for our members!
Need a refresher on best practices for submitting press releases to media? Download this CiderCon 2019 Presentation from media professionals Erin James and Caitlin Braam.
+Benefits in the Pipeline:
We’re excited to launch on-demand training for our Certified Cider Professional program and cider compliance guidelines this fall. We’ll also have some new market insights available soon. Stay tuned!
>Renew Your Membership Today
Are your having a hard time navigating our website to renew your membership? Email us and we can send you a quick invoice with a link to pay with a credit card. We’ve been affected by the COVID pandemic and your renewal today can have a huge impact. We have a small thank you for those who renew early by a month or more.
Q2 Nielsen Reports Ready For Download
One of the perks of combining our buying power as an association is that we can share valuable insights from Nielsen with you, our members.
You can now download our custom Q2 reports. In this data packet you will be able to access:
- Off-Premise Micro-Reports broken down for packaging type, flavor, and region–14 states and 6 regional outlooks. Available in both a 12-week and a 52-week outlook.
- Off-Premise Macro-Reports for Beer, FMBs and Cider. Available in both a 12-week and a 52-week outlook.
- On-Premise Reports for 6 metro markets.
- Nielsen PPT slide decks with charts, data visualization and insights on the cider category’s recent performance in both On- and Off-Premise.
- Bonus this quarter: Hard Seltzer off-premise report.
Here is an excerpt from a recent Nielsen survey about current overall consumer sentiment:
CONSUMER SENTIMENT REPORT SUMMARY BY NIELSEN
“Here are some high-level findings from a Nielsen survey of 18K+ consumers, fielded July 1-8, 2020.
- Since June, we have started to see some consistent trends not only for off premise alcohol, but also across many consumer good categories. That comes to life in consumer sentiment as well. 60% of households expect their routines to remain altered for at least the next 4 months
- Nielsen has shared insights in the past in several forms about how premiumization within off premise alcohol isn’t slowing down, and has in fact accelerated during COVID weeks. However, when it comes to total consumer goods, we are starting to see more cautious consumer sentiment in relation to spending. Approximately 4 in 10 (42%) of households say they are watching what they spend as a result of COVID.
- The homebody economy continues. When asked what % of time households eat meals or snacks at home versus outside of home, 39% of households said they ate 100% of their meals and snacks at home. An equal amount (39%) said they ate outside of their home only 10% of the time. As a comparison, when asked what their habits were prior to COVID, only 12% said they ate all of their meals at home.
- When asked what their plans are for the coming months, close to 1 in 3 households (28%) said they plan to eat all of their meals at home. That of course was lower for younger consumers age 21-34, and much higher for consumers age 65+.
- What about consumer plans if economic conditions get worse (recession and/or inflation)? When asked about things they would do to save money when shopping for beer or wine, 39% said they won’t change how they shop for it. However, nearly ¼ said they would buy less. That’s a slightly different story for households with lower income (<$30K), which said they would be more likely to stop buying it all together.”
Q2 2020 Nielsen Reports for Our Members
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8/25/20 Webinar Recording: State of Direct to Consumer-the Wine Perspective
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CiderCon® 2021 Will Be a Hybrid Event
Is CiderCon® 2021 happening? CiderCon® 2021 will take place whether we are in Chicago or in our online community!
When can I register? Registration for CiderCon® will open later this year to allow for event updates in response to changes with the current Pandemic. Our current target is October 15.
What will CiderCon® be like next year? We do know that CiderCon® is likely to have a mixture of in-person and virtual content no matter what, and that those virtual opportunities will be innovative and exciting.
If we are able to safely gather in Chicago in early February, we absolutely will! Chicago is now in Phase Four of the city’s reopening plan. It’s certain there will be some different protocols from CiderCons® past, but the networking and information sharing will continue.
Much of what we can do will rely on the state of Illinois, the city of Chicago, the Hilton and the virus itself. We’ve been meeting with the Hilton regularly, and are very impressed with their protocols. However, the city of Chicago currently has travel restrictions in place for nearly two-dozen states, requiring 14-day quarantine to enter the city.
Will there be a trade show? Similar to our educational offerings, we will be looking to offer in-person and virtual opportunities for CiderCon® participants to get to know our amazing industry vendors and allied trade members. If you’re interested in reaching our cidery members through our trade show, please get in touch with our coordinator, Ellen.
Should I make travel arrangements? If you have an arrangement that is refundable, you can plan to travel to Chicago for February 2-5, 2021. We will let you know when the hotel block opens.
We are looking forward to making more announcements about our exciting virtual educational & networking sessions that will be a part of CiderCon® 2021.
Annual Membership Survey Time!
We are working to finish a new strategic plan for the American Cider Association, and it’s very important to us that we hear from America’s cideries. You can be a part of guiding our programming to grow and sustain a diverse and successful cider industry by completing our affiliate membership survey.
There are two versions of the survey. One version is for owners/managers and includes benchmarking questions specific to HR and production. That version has been emailed to the main points of contact listed for member accounts.
There is also a version of the survey meant to collect input from non-owners/managers. If you are in the cider industry at all (apple grower, bar tender, keg producer, cider blogger, you name it!), you can take our survey and provide useful feedback.
The survey is completely anonymous. We thank you in advance for sharing with us!
6/23/20 Webinar Recording: Intro to Managing Distributor Relationships
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6/18/20 Recorded Webinar of PPP Loan Forgiveness Updates
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