We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Inez Ribustello. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Inez below.

Inez, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today So let’s jump to your mission – what’s the backstory behind how you developed the mission that drives your brand?

The Mission of TBC: Tarboro Brewing Company believes that creating exemplary craft beer and meaningful partnerships across the region will make us a national model for breweries in small, rural communities. We are invested in revitalizing Eastern North Carolina. Our team, our supporters and our neighbors drive our success.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I graduated from university with a journalism degree, and a passion for food so I moved to NYC to attend Peter Kump’s Cooking School. While in school, I worked at a small wine shop discovering that I enjoyed drinking more than I enjoyed cooking. I took the wine path to Windows on the World, starting as an assistant cellarmaster and moving up the ranks to Beverage Manager and then Beverage Director until 9/11. After moving to France and working the harvest in Fall of 2002, my fiance and I moved back to my hometown in eastern North Carolina to open a restaurant and wine store called On the Square. We operated our restaurant together until 2016 I left to run the microbrewery we started a couple of blocks down from On the Square. Since 2016, I have been running Tarboro Brewing Company as its President and Head of Sales. I am proud of starting businesses in the small town where I was born and raised in an effort to make it a special place to live. I am proud of being involved in our public school community. I am proud of taking an active stance on social justice issues. I am proud of publishing my first memoir. I am proud of the fact I am a woman in a male-dominated business.

Any fun sales or marketing stories?

It was April of 2020, and we had so much beer in our brewery that we couldn’t sell out of our taprooms, and our distributors were not picking up anything because bottle shops and bars were not open. We decided to go to our two Food Lion grocery stores and ask their managers would they trust us and have each location pick up 30 cases of our American Lager called Sexy Canoe.
We started a social media campaign asking for people to post a picture of them with a four-pack of our cans and a Food Lion receipt, and then they would be entered into a raffle for $100 gift certificate to Food Lion. Our friend who also bartended at TBC and my son and I went to Food Lion where my 12-year-old son filmed, edited and produced on TikTok a 15 second video of how to enter the raffle. We ended up selling our two Food Lions over 100 cases of beer over the course of 2.5 months, and we supported Food Lion by buying gift cards AND we donated an additional $100 Food Lion gift card to a local educator in our public school system. It was a feel good, fun way to sell our beer during the pandemic, and the video on Instagram became a local hit!

Do you have any insights you can share related to maintaining high team morale?

There is nothing more discouraging to your team that singing the blues, and yet, it is impractical to think of even the best leaders in the world staying positive all the time. Find someone you can talk to who will allow you to vent with no judgment and no repercussions. This is your person. This is the ONLY person you let hear all of your worries, concerns, fears, hesitations. Make sure you tell them everything so there is nothing left to share with your team.
With your team, you are the person sailing the ship forward with the attitude of “we are creating a better world with our mission” so that the team sees and feels your positive energy. Don’t let your team

Contact Info:

• Website: www.inezribustello.com
• Instagram: @inezribustello
• Facebook: Inez Ribustello
• Twitter: @inier

Image Credits
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