Talented and Compassionate, Non? Adeline Druart, Lawson’s Finest Liquids

Shifting from butter and cheese to beer, Adeline Druart becomes CEO of Lawson’s Finest Liquids in September. Photos courtesy Lawson’s.

 

by Joyce Marcel, Vermont Business Magazine The French have a phrase for it: “coup de foudre.” It means a kind of emotional lightning strike that changes your life. For cheese-maker Adeline Druart, it happened twice in 2003. Coming over from her native France for a dairy internship, she fell in love with the man who would later become her husband. And then she fell in love with Vermont.

Druart, 43, is the former president of Vermont Creamery; shifting from butter and cheese to beer, she becomes CEO of Lawson’s Finest Liquids this September.

This is a strange and shaky time in the once-booming craft beer world. The shuttering in July of San Francisco’s Anchor Beer amid a convergence of slowing sales, mismanagement and poor marketing has raised many issues about whether the market is starting to shrink and whether elite craft beers, and especially IPAs, are still economically viable.

This is an especially important question in Vermont, which is a leader in the craft brewing industry. Deeply admired leaders such as Lawson’s Sip Of Sunshine, along with The Alchemist’s Heady Topper and the two beers Abner and Ann by Hill Farmstead, help to draw about a million tourists a year to the state and generate around $130 million in economic activity.

Up until now, Lawson’s has been run by its founders, Sean Lawson, 53, who serves as CEO, and his wife, Karen Lawson, 49, who oversees its philanthropic arm. Their decision to step back from the day-to-day running of the company and hire Druart as CEO means adding a high-end salary to the top of the privately owned Lawson’s payroll.

Sean Lawson believes the market may be saturated, but there is still room to grow.

“Beer, in general, is facing a lot of headwinds,” Lawson said. “There is intense competition from all different types of beverages, all different types of alcoholic beverages. So our pathway to growth is to continue to grow our market share and points of distribution by being one of the best, being the finest and being the freshest.

 

Photo: Druart is welcomed to Larson’s Finest by co-founder Sean Larson, the man she will succeed as CEO of the company. Photos courtesy Lawson’s.

“With the change in our roles,” he added, “Karen and I will be working less. Both of us are planning to reduce the salaries that we draw from the business significantly. Our salary reductions alone will really help pay for the addition of a full-time, hired CEO.”

Druart, one of the very few female company CEOs in Vermont, is modeling a new way of leadership.

For example, when she was pregnant with her second child, one of her top employees at Vermont Creamery was also pregnant. After the two women gave birth, the employee ran into Druart at work one night and chastised her for being there so late.

“I was back in the office with a newborn and just running really hard, because we were going through an acquisition and integration,” Druart said. “I was pushing myself and thinking I can do everything. And I remember this employee coming to me and saying, ’I need you to go home. Because every night when I finish work and go home to see my baby, and I see you in the office, I feel guilty.’ This was a big teaching moment of leadership for me.”

For her, leadership means showing how to work smart, how to achieve true work-life balance.

“You need to demonstrate that it’s OK to go home to see your baby,” Druart said. “And I appreciate those teaching moment, where it’s someone from my team who feels comfortable to come and call me out and say, ’Hey, you need to walk the talk. Let me help take the blinders off. Now that you’re president of a company, it’s not about being there all the time. It’s about demonstrating what a successful balance in life looks like.’”

Druart may have ended her tenure at Vermont Creamery as president, but she began it as an intern.

Druart grew up in a small village in the Franche-Comté region of eastern France called La Villeneuve.

“The village I grew up in has more cows than people,” she said, laughing. “It’s north of the Alps, by Switzerland. If you look at this region, it’s the Vermont of France.”

While both of her parents worked — her father as a loan officer at a bank and her mother as the owner of a boutique — Druart and her younger sister kept busy studying and, when time permitted, doing chores at their grandparents’ farm next door.

Druart chose a career in food and began studying at the national dairy school of France after graduating from high school.

“Think of it as a culinary institute, but for dairy science,” she said. “It’s a technical school. There’s a cheese plant at the school, and in the morning we’d go make cheese and butter. In the afternoon, we’d have all the standard courses such as microbiology, chemistry, economics and finance. I loved the hands-on portion of that curriculum. After that, I did a master’s degree in biotechnology.”

That degree demanded an internship, and Druart happened upon information about Vermont Creamery. She applied, was accepted, moved to Vermont, fell in love and never left.

Druart rose from working on the line at Vermont Creamery to leading its operations; she helped negotiate the sale of the company to Land O’Lakes when co-founders Bob Reese and Allison Hooper decided to sell. She then stayed with the company as CEO.

In 2014, Vermont Creamery became a Certified B Corporation, with a mission to use the power of business to solve social and environmental problems.

Lawson’s also has recently become a B Corp, the second brewery in the state to do so. The Alchemist brewery in Stowe has also earned that distinction.

Druart calls the B Corp designation a gift.

“Coming into this new role with Lawson’s Finest and hearing that last month we received certification as a B Corp is exciting,” Druart said.

The ebullient Druart is a leader without affect; she has an amused air about her. She is elegant, open, charming, funny and insanely likable. She still speaks with an endearing French accent. The word most people use to describe her is “joyous.”

Ted Castle, founder, owner and CEO of Rhino Foods, has known Druart for many years.

“She’s very passionate,” Castle said. “She’s very hardworking. She is not afraid of a challenge. And I admire her desire to see a business become socially responsible.”

Aly Richards, CEO at Let’s Grow Kids, the nonprofit that recently spearheaded Vermont’s ground-breaking child care bill into law, tapped Druart for a seat on a panel of CEOs who believe that high-quality, affordable and sustainable child care is imperative to achieving economic growth.

“Adeline is really a force of nature,” Richards said. “She has a rare combination of being fierce and graceful. She’s bold and visionary, and humble and thoughtful. She can show up in the world as a gentle and forceful presence. And she’s so supportive and encouraging as a human with her friends, and for her team when she’s leading an organization.

“She can both lead and cheerlead simultaneously. It’s just a gift to have a human like that. She is so active in our community, and she does the whole thing with a big smile on her face — a radiance that is really contagious in the best possible way. She really just is one of those special people.”

Vermont Creamery’s Reese echoes Richards’ sentiments.

“I can’t say enough about her talents,” Reese said. “She’s multifaceted. She has such a passion for the product, such a passion for the people that work with her. There are probably a lot of other cheesemakers in Vermont who have benefited from Adeline’s experience and leadership. She’s a very, very talented cheesemaker, but she’s also a leader who has a compassion for every person that works with her.”

Druart took seriously the responsibility to mentor her staff, Reese said.

“She understood that the staff was her No. 1 asset,” Reese said. “She was very good at keeping people. Several employees would go to her with their personal problems and seek good advice, whether it was an issue with a bank, an issue with an insurance company or an issue with another colleague in the company. I hope that Lawson’s really understands the talent that they’ve brought inside their organization. They’re going to be very happy with her.”

The Lawsons seem to understand this.

“As a person, she’s just really a joy to be around,” said Karen Lawson. “Adeline has a very strong record of skillful leadership. She’s very relatable. She’s a people-oriented person, so she’s very easy to speak to. I see her continuing our work culture of transparency and authenticity.”

Sean Lawson said he was overjoyed that Druart will be leading Lawson’s.

“We were just so thrilled that she chose to join our company,” he said. “She’s a highly respected business leader, both here in Vermont and beyond. And her story — growing from an intern to finally president and CEO, and then successfully shepherding the business through a transition when the founders decided it was time for their exit — is compelling.

“Now, that’s not our plan for Lawson’s Finest, but the fact that Adeline not only helped the founders do that but then stayed on for six or seven years to steer the company through another phase of growth and success, is a demonstration of just how sharp her business acumen is.”

Lawson said he was particularly impressed that Druart decided to make Vermont her home. “She came here as an immigrant,” he said. “She didn’t know any English when she arrived. And now she’s mastered the English language. I asked her specifically about that. She said that at home, she and her husband talk and think in English when it comes to business, because they learned all about business in English. They’ve taught their kids both French and English. So they’ll speak conversationally in French, but when they talk about business, it’s always in English.”

 

Early Life

Druart and her younger sister grew up in rural France, learning about farming, animal husbandry, small businesses and cooking.

She gained an understanding of sustainable growth from her banker father.

“My father taught me to start small and only do what you can,” Druart said. “He also taught me about financing.”

Druart began working in her mother’s boutique when she was 10 years old.

“I was helping with inventory, with cleaning the windows, with customer service,” Druart said. “And she was working seven days a week, even on holidays. So I learned small business and one-on-one customer service through her. And then, because my parents were working long hours and many days, during school vacation I was at my grandparents’ farm, working on the farm, milking the cows and feeding the calves and everything in between.”

It was this experience that led her to seek a career in the food industry.

“I think it starts with the way I was raised,” Druart said. “We had huge gardens, so we harvested our own vegetables. We made jam in the summer. The meats that we were eating were from the farm. We were drinking milk from the farm. My mom is an amazing cook and she makes everything from scratch. Plus raising two children, plus running a business. So I just thought that was the way of life, the appreciation of working the land and good, slow food. To me, that makes sense.”

She said her parents raised her to stand on her own two feet.

“They told me, ’You are not going to be working or taking over the business. You need to find your own way,’” she said.

Her parents were right. When her grandparents died, the farm passed to her uncles.

“But there was no succession plan beyond that, and both farms are no longer operating, which is heartbreaking,” she said.

 

Coming to Vermont

After graduating from high school, Druart chose to work in the food industry and spent two years at Ecole Nationale d’Industrie Laitiere in La Roche-sur-Foron, which she describes as a culinary school for dairy science. In 2001, she earned a BTS, the equivalent to a U.S. Bachelor of Science, in dairy technology and science.

Two years later, she earned a master’s degree with honors in biotechnology/bioindustry from Université de Lyon.

It was the master’s degree that required the internship that changed her life. Reese recalls interviewing her for the position.

“Her depth of the English language was pretty limited,” Reese said. “I think she had someone typing and interpreting some of the questions for her and prepping her. It was very cute and resourceful on her part, I should say.”

Vermont Creamery was looking for people with some knowledge of making cheese.

“Adeline was from what I would call the French cheese school,” Reese said. “She was getting a master’s degree in dairy plant management. She’s a microbiologist by training. I think at that point, the French cheese industry had limited growth opportunities for her, and she saw that it would take years and years of working in the trenches in some middle-management job before she could get into the C-suite. So this was a unique opportunity.”

Reese thinks Druart may have had something to prove to her parents as well.

“She wanted to prove her talent, but she was also telling her parents, ’I’m going to go over to another country and rise above the ranks and become a leader in an industry in the U.S.,’” he said.

Business schools in the U.S. teach students how to write a business plan, focus on numbers and be profitable. Social responsibility is not usually in the mix, Reese said.

“You work on behalf of your shareholders,” he said. “But that’s not how they are bred over in France. There, you’re part of an industry of community of producers. Part of a year, they’re not just cheesemakers. They are farmers who raise beef or chicken. They grow shallots. They’re totally connected to the farmers’ markets, the retail stores and especially the chefs.

“Chefs regard the producers in high esteem. Here, we think about chefs as formal, classically trained people who are difficult to deal with. In France, it’s the total opposite. They’re partners. I think Adeline understood that from the very beginning. It probably took me a lot longer to realize how important they were. Vermont Creamery should be proud of the relationships that we’ve developed with some of the most the incredible chefs and retail cheesemongers in the country.”

 

Coming to America

When she boarded a plane for the U.S., Druart did not speak English. She had never been on a plane before. She had certainly never left France.

“I had this view of America from the plane, places like New York City,” she said. “I remember then coming to Vermont and seeing the landscape here, and it reminded me of home. And then finding Red Hen Baking! It’s like, ’My god, there is croissant, there is baguette. That is terrific.’ The more I would discover Vermont, the more I was like, ’This feels like home.’”

For Druart’s two-month internship, the plan was to stay at the house of Allison Hooper, the other co-founder of Vermont Creamery.

“She told me, ’There is another intern here. He went also to the National Dairy School of France. His name is Marc,” Druart recalled. “I remember walking into the office and meeting Marc for the first time, and I just fell in love, right? Love is really feeling loved within a place. The creamery, the company and its founder and people are just terrific people. So I found my family there, and that’s why we stayed.”

At one point, however, the couple thought about moving on.

“We were trying to decide whether it’s going to be New Zealand or Australia, or Vermont,” Druart said. “Then we looked at the map and figured out that traveling back and forth from Montréal to France is going to be easier than traveling from France to Sydney. That’s kind of how we landed our place in the world.”

Marc Druart went on to help open the Vermont Institute for Artisan Cheese at the University of Vermont. He taught and did research before taking a leadership role at a company based in Wisconsin 12 years ago. He now works as vice president of research and development for a French cheese company in Philadelphia and commutes back and forth from Vermont. The couple have two young sons.

 

Building Vermont Creamery

Druart’s internship was spent working on the line, wrapping butter, boxing butter and helping to clean the cheese.

“After my shift, I will go and clean the bathroom,” she said. “You know, in a small business you do it all. Then we started to have great conversations with our co-founders, Bob Reese and Allison Hooper. Allison had traveled to France and discovered amazing goat-milk aged cheeses, and she wanted to make those. They had started to make them in the creamery, but it was creating some issues with product quality and was not scalable.”

Druart offered to make the cheeses Hooper was dreaming about.

 

Photo: Druart proudly represents Vermont Creamery. Courtesy photo.

“It started with a sketch, and then they offered me the opportunity to really expand this project,” Druart said. “I designed the place, built the business case, and that’s what I presented for my master’s thesis. I remember after my presentation, one of the teachers who was sitting on the panel looked at me and said, ’Let me get this right. You are 21 years old, you go to America and you’re going to build a cheese plant?’ He didn’t say, ’You’re a woman,’ but I was sure he was thinking that.

“I just remember he looked at me and said, ’You don’t get to build a cheese plant at 21 years old.’ I don’t remember what I said. But I remember what I was thinking, which was, ’Well, they offered me the opportunity of a lifetime, and I’m going and I’m settling in America to build a cheese plant.’”

Druart was still not speaking much English at this point.

“What is interesting is to imagine a contractors’ meeting,” she said, laughing. “My trick was to bring coffee and donuts. I would prep the night before — all that conversation with my little dictionary — to make sure that was what we needed to do for the project. It was a humbling experience, but I made it through.”

The plant she designed has been expanded several times and is still in operation.

“So at the beginning, I was managing this project and became operations manager,” Druart said.

At one point, the plant began experiencing contamination. Reese remembers Druart dedicating herself to figuring out the problem.

“We were trying to figure out why we were experiencing a yeast contamination in our fresh cheeses,” Reese said. “And Adeline, she never gave up. She was looking at every single step in the process, mapping it all out, testing every stage. She zeroed in on a quality issue. We were draining cheese with a cheese bag — it’s almost like a laundry bag — and you have a tie that has a cord with knots in it. You tie that up and then take a big pillow of cheese and put weights on top. The weights force the whey out at the bottom. Then you have to keep flipping those.”

The contamination, Druart discovered, was in the knots.

“Adeline called one of her cheese bag suppliers over in France,” Reese continued. “If Allison and I had made that call, we would have never got to the CEO. But the CEO went to the same theory school as Adeline. And the CEO told her the contamination was in the knot. Sure enough, she tested every cheese bag. We were basically buying milk, making cheese and throwing a third of the cheese away in the dumpster. She saved the company. That’s the story that you should tell. She worked with the utmost doggedness. Now, somebody might say, ’Well, yeah, that was obvious.’ But we were tearing the place apart every day trying to find this contamination.”

As the company grew, Druart became general manager and finally president.

 

The B Corp Designation

In 2014, Vermont Creamery became a certified B Corporation, a designation that a business is meeting high standards of verified performance, accountability and transparency on factors from employee benefits and charitable giving to supply-chain practices and input materials.

“It was at a time when we started to accelerate growth and invest in the business,” Druart said. “We wanted to make sure that the employees knew that we were committed to remain a purpose-led business.”

Reese, Hooper and Druart attended a B Corp training and decided it was the way to go.

“We came to the realization that we were already acting as a B Corp,” Druart said. “We are doing all those things because it’s part of who we are as a business. We just didn’t talk about it, and we didn’t have a certification yet. We also spoke to our friends at Cabot Creamery, who were the first dairy company to become certified. So, we decided to do it, and we were very glad we did.”

Per capita, Druart said, Vermont has the most B Corp certified businesses in the country.

“It’s about using business as a force for good,” Druart said. “It’s about thinking of the triple bottom line (of profit, people and planet), not just about the shareholders. I really love this, about how Vermont businesses are operating and the impact they want to have in the world.”

Druart is on the board of Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility.

“There are a lot of innovative, pioneering businesses in our state,” Druart said. “When you think about purpose-led businesses, there’s been King Arthur Baking, Seventh Generation, Rhino Foods and a lot of other businesses that have reinvented the game.”

 

Onward and Upward

In 2015, Reese and Hooper began to think about exiting the company.

“Bob was the president and Allison was the CEO,” Druart said. “They felt it was time to think of a succession plan. They established me as the president of Vermont Creamery.”

When, two years later, Reese and Hooper were ready to sell the company, a number of suitors were interviewed. The pair settled on Land O’Lakes, a Minnesota-based company known to most Americans for its sweet-cream butter sold in individually wrapped sticks.

“The attraction to Land O’Lakes was first an alignment in values,” Druart said. “We were attracted by the fact that they are a co-op. Being owned by farmers was something meaningful to our shareholders. There was a great alignment also in core values — focusing on product quality and innovation and really making sure that people and product are at the core of everything we do. We were also attracted by the ambition to support the growth we saw for the company and for the business. The leadership team and I were very excited to have the opportunity of taking the business to the next level. And Land O’Lakes was energized and inspired by that.”

The acquisition by Land O’Lakes became official in 2017. Druart led the company until February of this year.

 

Leaving Vermont Creamery

Druart made the decision to leave Vermont Creamery out of a desire to reinvent herself.

“I was proud to celebrate my 20-year anniversary,” Druart said. “I remember reflecting on ’when do I feel I will have accomplished everything that I could for the business and the team?’ I went through the list and saw how much the team is thriving, how much the business has grown and how it has established itself as one of the leading brands in the country for specialty cheese.

“I was looking at our purpose and going through the checklist of a great business, and thinking, ’I have brought the business to where it is, and I’m very proud of the work we’ve done. Now it’s time for me to almost start from scratch and reinvent myself — to learn again a new industry and be a student again.’”

Druart had already made the decision to leave Vermont Creamery when she started talking to the Lawsons about Lawson’s Finest.

“It was like a ’pinch me’ moment,” Druart said. “It feels like such a natural fit.”

The Lawsons, like Reese and Hooper at Vermont Creamery, were ready to take a step back from the day-to-day running of their company.

“For 15 years, Karen and I have worked diligently to turn a mom-and- pop business that started very small into a really thriving enterprise,” Sean Lawson said. “We’ve got over 80 employees now, and our beer is distributed all across the Northeast. We’re ready to open the next chapter of success for our business by bringing in a CEO to take on the day-to-day operations and lead the senior management team.”

The Lawsons want to be clear that they are not leaving the business.

“We’re not really stepping away or stepping down from the business,” Sean explained. “We’re stepping up into our role fully as stewards of the business and as owners. We’re making that transition from being day-to-day employees to holders and stewards of our brand and the culture and the values that we built. It’s a pretty exciting change for me. I’m also really excited to get some time back. I’ll be able to have more flexibility with my schedule. Karen and I will still be actively involved in the business, just not as employees on a day-to-day basis.”

Lawson’s has a team of brewers on staff, but Sean wants to “tinker with beer recipes,” among other things.

“I am looking forward to spending more time doing that and contributing to our innovation pipeline,” he said. “And also being a brand ambassador. I want to get out into the market a bit more, to where I can make an impact and deliver value for Lawson’s Finest by being a face and a voice for our company with our fans and with our key accounts.”

 

The Philanthropic Arm

Karen Lawson runs the company’s social impact program, which has contributed nearly $2 million to area nonprofits.

“It’s really grown in terms of the impact that we’ve been able to have here in Vermont,” she said. “Probably the most well-known program within our Social Impact Program is our Sunshine Fund. Because we pay our staff living wages and generous benefit packages, our staff don’t rely on tips for their salary. So, in lieu of tips, we invite guests to provide a donation. Every two weeks, we change the Vermont nonprofit that’s featured in the Sunshine Fund and 100% of guest donations go to that nonprofit.”

The Lawsons look for nonprofits with missions aligned with food and economic security, healthy communities, sustainable recreation and environmental conservation in the state of Vermont.

“We’ve been able to support a really neat spectrum of Vermont nonprofits,” Karen Lawson said.

 

Photo: Karen and Sean Lawson toast Druart’s new job. Photos courtesy Lawson’s.

The company recently hired a social impact program manager to run the day-to-day philanthropy, freeing Karen to think more strategically.

“I want to be able to plan further ahead and create deeper relationships with Vermont nonprofits, especially the ones that we will be supporting annually,” she said. “I want to really learn what their needs are, and not just financially. We’re talking about starting an employee volunteer program and figuring out how we can link a new initiative like that to nonprofits in the state. For me, it’s about thinking further ahead in our social-impact work and about how can we deepen that impact.”

The brewery announced in July that it is accepting applications for its 2024 Sunshine Fund. Since its inception in 2018, the fund has donated in support of nearly 100 Vermont nonprofits. In 2022 alone, Lawson’s Finest Liquids donated more than $290,000 to 24 nonprofit organizations.

Vermont nonprofits interested in becoming a Sunshine Fund recipient in 2024 must apply online before Aug. 31. Twenty-four organizations will be awarded the coveted partnership next year and be featured “On Tap” in the taproom to receive 100% of Sunshine Fund donations during a designated two-week period.

The rapid growth of the company has been an intense experience, Karen Lawson said. She is looking forward to having some time to think about where she wants to go from here.

“Sean and I started this business 15 years ago, and for the bulk of that time it was really a mom-and-pop operation,” she said. “We pretty much did everything that needed to happen. We ran our brewery and our business next to our home in Warren while raising our children. In 2016, we hired our first employee. In 2018, we opened our Waitsfield taproom and brewery and went from about three employees to over 50.

We grew incredibly in 2018, and we built an amazing team at all levels. All during that time, Sean and I have held jobs in the business. We’ve been speaking for years about really removing ourselves from the tactical work and focus on what are the passion points in our business that we really want to devote our time to, that aren’t necessarily sitting in front of a computer eight hours a day.”

 

The Future

Lawson’s beers are brewed in Connecticut. The company says that brewing at larger facilities there has helped achieve scale and kept the product close to the markets it serves. That way it reduces its carbon footprint and allows it to get the freshest beer quickly to the major markets of Boston, New York and Philadelphia. It has no current plans to move production.

Led by increased points of distribution and a strong rate of sales of the flagship brand, Sip of Sunshine IPA, and the newly released brew Hazy Rays IPA, Lawson’s has seen month-over-month sales growth so far in 2023.

Since March, when the company added its Hazy Rays to the year-round Sunshine family, the tropical, fruit-forward IPA has sold more than double its initial projections.

June was the largest month in distribution sales that Lawson’s has had as a company. By increasing its distribution, there is still much room to grow, Sean said.

“This year we’re bringing on quite a bit of new grocery business,” he said. “Hannaford’s is a new customer for us. We’re also expanding into chain and other grocery stores where we haven’t been distributed before — places like Stop and Shop, Market Basket, Global and Giant. That will enable us to grow our business this year. We’re seeing nice returns on that already, even though we’ve just entered into new partnerships with those retailers.”

The company is looking to expand to other states close to the Northeast in the next few years.

Druart is excited to take on the challenge of running the company.

“It seems like a perfect match,” she said. “It’s a one-in-a-million match.”

Photo: Cheers to the future. Photos courtesy Lawson’s.

However, she has also been happy to have some time this summer to relax, visit France and slow down before her new position officially begins.

“I’m starting in September, because I wanted to make sure I have time to spend with my boys and my family and rediscover what it’s like to slow down, which I’ve never did before in my life!” she said. “So, that was a scary jump. But now I’m on-boarding slowly with a team and learning the business. I’m very excited about it.”

The closing of Anchor Beer to the contrary, Druart sees a future of sustainable growth in the craft beer industry.

“There is a lot more to go, absolutely,” she said. “For Lawson’s Finest Liquids, no question about it. We have room to grow our penetration — the states we’re in. We also are very innovation-driven. So we continue to do more of that. Now that Sean is going to be out of the day-to-day, I’m excited to see what he and the team can do.”

The Lawson’s taproom, which serves up light fare and more than a dozen beers on tap, will remain a tourist destination.

“It’s such a beautiful part of the Mad River Valley,” Druart said. “It’s very community-based. It’s surrounded by so many great mountains, where you can ski, mountain bike or hike. It’s a perfect destination for food, beer and recreation. I see us really continuing on that journey with those three pillars of growth.”

But it won’t always be easy. Lawson’s must contend not only with an increasingly saturated craft beer market, but with several other challenges particular to their industry, Druart said.

“Consumers are changing their behavior related to alcohol,” she said. “They are drinking less of it. They want a healthy lifestyle. They’re watching their calorie intake. And spirits are growing at a faster rate. There are cocktails now in the can, ready to go. So consumers are exploring outside of beer, or on the periphery of beer. Our role as a business leader is to understand what the new consumer is looking for and make sure that we have a product to meet that new demand.”

This does not mean Lawson’s will soon be selling canned cocktails.

“I’m not saying that,” Druart said. “I’m saying we have got to understand it. Then we’ll have to see whether we want to play or not in this space. I think it’s pretty clear that canned cocktails are not a fit for Lawson’s Finest Liquids, but there are a lot of other opportunities for us to explore.”

Among those opportunities are beers with a lower alcohol content.

“We are releasing a nitro beer,” Druart said. “It’s a beer with berries. Nitro beer is made with a different process. It creates a different texture in the beer. The intent is to continue on those lines, whether it’s fruity beer, whether it’s beers that are made differently, to create different flavor profiles or textures.”

Druart expects the transition to her job at Lawson’s will differ greatly from her start at Vermont Creamery.

“Lawson’s Finest is a successful business,” she explained. “The job to be done as I come in as the new CEO is not to turn around the business. It is to continue the success that the business has had. It’s a family-owned business. And the intent here is to build a business to thrive, not to sell. Karen and Sean have been very clear about that. It’s to bring the company to the next level of sustainable growth.”

Druart credits the people of Vermont for helping make her a successful CEO.

“The people that I have had the chance to work with and work for are the reason I am who I am as a business leader,” she said. “If the co-founders of Vermont Creamery didn’t give me a chance as a 21-year-old, not speaking English, I likely would be back in France having a very different kind of life. The team I worked with over 19 years helped me grow to become a leader. 

“In this next chapter of my career, I decided to go with the people-first choice. It is clear to me that Sean and Karen share similar values in their business approach — a deep sense of community, impact and care — and their amazing staff would be my source of inspiration, where I can help them grow and thrive. Working with amazing people is the most rewarding part of being a business leader.”

In the end, it is the sense of community in Vermont that Druart loves the most.

“French people like their food,” she said. “They like to entertain. They love to cook. They love slow food and good food. It’s part of the culture. There is also great value around rural life, the farming community and the craft community. That’s what I love about the cheesemaking community and the craft brewing community. It’s about the quality of the product, and it’s about the tradition.

“When you think of the tradition of cheesemaking and brewing,” she added,  “it goes back centuries. It’s really built into the culture and the fabric of the country. I’m seeing that here in Vermont and in the craft brewing community. I have learned to deeply appreciate that.”

 

Joyce Marcel is a journalist in southern Vermont. In 2017, she was named best business magazine profile writer in the country by the Alliance of Area Business Publishers. She is married to Randy Holhut, the news editor/acting operations manager of The Commons, a weekly newspaper in Brattleboro.