2021 Gumbo final - Book - Page 66
66
a helping hand
L
SU Honors alumnus Jacob Landry found an
interesting way to supplement his company’s
income during the height of the pandemic.
Landry is the founder of Urban South, the largest craft
brewery in New Orleans. With the closure of restaurants and
taprooms in New Orleans, Landry needed to find a way to
continue to pay his staff.
“About 45% of the beer we were sending out were going
out in kegs, what we call on-premise,” Landry said. “When
they shut down, immediately that 45% of the beer we made
was completely shut off.”
Those losses were exacerbated by the closing of
taprooms with COVID-19 restrictions, which accounted for
an additional 30% of Urban South’s revenue. With over 75%
of revenue being cut off, Landry’s top concern became his
employees.
“It was a pretty scary moment particularly because we
employ close to 40 people, and so my number one concern
was ‘How do we ensure that these people’s livelihoods are
not impacted, and how do we keep our really great team
together and not lose people?’” Landry said.
That opportunity arose shortly after the shutdown of
taprooms and restaurants in New Orleans when Landry’s
state representative forwarded him the information about
the bid. “I think it was maybe a week or two after the
shutdown happened that the opportunity for the state bid
on hand sanitizer came through,” Landry said. “My state rep.
forwarded a letter to me and I said ‘Hey we’ve never done
this before, but we certainly know how to put liquid into
bottles.’ So I did some back-of-the-envelope calculations on
what it would cost to do that, and what kind of bid we could
put in.”
Employees of Urban South also benefited, as many
outside of the production staff had no work.
“It was huge for us because we have a pretty big staff that
was slowed down a lot on beer production,” Landry said.
“We had no taproom visitors, so we had bartender staff that
didn’t have any work. It was a good opportunity for us to
repurpose some people and keep them employed.”
Landry said his time in the Ogden Honors College
prepared him for the challenges not only of COVID-19, but of
running a business.
“I’d say first and foremost that the challenge of the
Honors College was really valuable,” Landry said. “From
a personal working perspective, that was certainly
helpful in my development. I think more broadly that
liberal arts foundation coupled particularly with the mass
communication focus on really being able to communicate
clearly and effectively has been incredibly valuable.”
Though the project helped to keep Urban South in
business through the pandemic, Landry expects to return to
solely beer production in the near future as restrictions are
lifted.