Digital Dairy Chain Event Hosted at Easterbrook Hall

We were delighted to welcome the Digital Dairy Chain to Easterbrook Hall last week for their Knowledge Exchange Event. With over 160 attendees, it was a popular event and it was great to see connections being made within the dairy sector. The Digital Dairy Chain offer any business or individual involved in the dairy supply chain across Cumbria, South and West Scotland a range of services to support innovation and productivity through collaboration, from R&D to business growth and talent acquisition.

We were lucky enough to catch the event’s keynote speaker, Kristian Tapaninaho from Ooni, the world’s number one pizza oven brand. Speaking about the business, Kristian gave delegates and insight into the story behind the business and how it grew from a simple thought into the brand it is today.

The problem Kristian and his co-founder, Darina Garland, were looking to solve and find an answer to was how to make a wood fired oven that is small, fast and affordable; a thought that sparked the idea for the brand back in 2012. Since then, the business and its products have evolved into the multi-million pound business that it is today, and it was fascinating to find out more detail behind the journey.

Kristian gave us some really interesting insight, including how they came up with the size and shape of the Ooni pizza oven. Aiming for something portable and lightweight, they started to figure out the ideal size by scaling down from the size of a pallet, so they could ensure easy shipping, and only using three legs instead of four to keep the initial product under 10kg.

There were some great takeaways from the event, particularly the correlation between entrepreneurs and artist’s creativity, both things that we are always looking to encourage and develop at The Crichton. Kristian also gave some great advice, including encouraging attendees to “discover and embrace points of friction; allow yourself to get annoyed” in order to understand what the problems are that you’re facing and figure out how they could be improved upon.

A huge thank you to Kristian for such an interesting presentation, and to the Digital Dairy Chain for organising the event. We left feeling inspired, and we’re certain the rest of the attendees did too! If you’re looking to host your own event and would like more information about conferencing, event spaces and catering, don’t hesitate to get in touch with our venues team on 01387 219090 or email events@crichton.co.uk.