Frederik Kampman

Why I fired myself. Ten years ago I hired myself as the "Chief Botanical Officer" of Lowlander, the only Low & No alc beer, brewed with botanicals 🍻 ☘️ 🍊 A couple of months ago I let myself go. Why? Because my mission is accomplished. I took a kitchen table idea and built it into a category-defining brand. I keep coming back to what a privilege it has been to have done the work I once begged the universe for. And feel incredibly grateful for everybody who has helped me to get there 🙏 It's over to the team of Lowlanders to write Lowlander's next chapter. As for me, I will continue to be involved but now support in a "Non-Exec" capacity (and obviously be Lowlander's biggest drinker). 🚀 I am now ready for new (ad)ventures. Whether that's building something from scratch with the right co-founder, buying (part of) a business with potential or partnering with others who want to scale. 💚 I am going to continue to do what I love: building and scaling distinctive consumer brands. I now move between my new base in the New Forest, UK 🐎 🌳 🇬🇧 and move between my two favourite cities, London 🎡 and Amsterdam 🚲 . I have time :) So if you are up for a walk & talk, a beer or a hatching a plan, let me know.

Trade shows are for browsing. The Amsterdam No, Low & Mid-Strength Summit is for building. 🛠️🏗️ 2026 is already moving at full throttle 🚀, and the Low & No category is no longer an "alternative"—it’s the main event. 🌍✨ The agenda for the Amsterdam Summit (21st April) is officially live, and I’m thrilled to be speaking alongside some of the sharpest minds in the industry. 🎤 I attended the London Summit last year (check the video below! 👇), and it was genuinely one of the best industry gatherings I have ever been part of. It wasn't just talk; it was the energy of having the right people in one room solving real problems. 💡🤝 This isn’t just another expensive corporate event. We’ve designed this as a high-impact "working day," and as co-hosts, we are so excited to be sharing our space at Lowlander Botanical Bar & Restaurant 🪴🍻 for the occasion. We’re opening our doors to bridge the gap between big data and grassroots innovation. Why you need a seat at the table: 📈💎 For Brand Owners: Get "clear-eyed" insights from Dan Gasper on the road ahead, plus sessions on funding, digital scaling, and building investor confidence. 🍹✨For On-Trade (Horeca) Operators: Learn how super-premium non alc builds category legitimacy and better margins with insights from Carl Heline Héline. 🛒🏢For Retailers: Join our heavyweight retail panel to hear exactly what buyers need to see to take your brand seriously in-store. 🚚🔍For Distributors & Wholesalers: Identify the "smaller, sharper" players pushing boundaries and discover the routes to market that are actually working in 2026. 🤝 Meet the Buyers: We have around 300 slots for structured meetings with major retailers and distributors. Last year in London, these sessions led directly to listings, pilots, and long-term partnerships. 📝✨ The "Club Soda" Deal: We keep our prices at about 1/6th of a commercial conference because we want the right people in the room, not just those with the biggest budgets. 💸 To make it even easier to bring your team, hit me up via DM for a discount code! 🎟️🙌 See you in Amsterdam! 🇳🇱🛶 (Note: I'll drop the registration link in the first comment below! 🔗👇) #NoLow #AmsterdamSummit #ClubSoda #Lowlander #BeverageInnovation #FutureOfDrinking #MindfulDrinking #LowAndNo

Lowlander and AB InBev to partner to accelerate growth of Low & No in the Netherlands! 🌿🍺 Today, we are proud to announce our strategic partnership with AB InBev for the exclusive distribution of the Lowlander Botanical Beers portfolio in the Netherlands. By combining AB InBev’s scale with Lowlander’s unique position as a dedicated 'Low & No' player, we aim to further accelerate the growth of non-alcoholic and low-alcohol beers (up to 3.5%) and make flavourful, botanical beer accessible on a larger scale. We aren’t changing who we are. We’re staying independent, botanical, and 100% focused on Low & No, but we are drastically changing our reach. This is the moment the momentum hits a tipping point. 📈 Time to drink a Lowlander (or two) to celebrate. 🍻 (See link to full press release in the comments) 📸 Walking back into the AB InBev offices yesterday to announce this was a trip down memory lane. I started my beer career here in 2008 (eek!). Coming back years later with my own brand in my hand, is the ultimate proof that grit pays off. #Lowlander #ABInbev #Partnership #Distribution #LowAndNo #Entrepreneurship #OnwardsAndUpwards

You cannot scale a personality. But you can scale a system. In the early days of a startup, chaos is your oxygen. You move fast, you break things, and you wear every hat in the building. But as Lowlander began to scale, I realised my own "founder hustle" had become the company's biggest bottleneck. I was busy, but I wasn't being productive. I was working in the business, but I wasn't working on it. 🚀 Routine sets you free. To move from a startup to a scalable machine, we had to trade the adrenaline of chaos for the discipline of process. Here is what I learned while building those foundations: 1️⃣ The "Rockefeller Habits" are unsexy, but they work. Harnish talks about the power of rhythm. We started implementing daily huddles, weekly tactical meetings, and quarterly strategic resets. At first, it felt like "corporate overhead." But eventually, we realised that these routines were the only things allowing the business to breathe. They created a heartbeat for the company. 2️⃣ Building foundations while the roof is on fire. The hardest part of scaling is finding the time to build structure while you are growing at 100% year-on-year. It feels counter-intuitive to slow down and document a process when you have a warehouse to move or a major retail deal to close. But if you don't build the foundation, the growth will eventually crush you. 3️⃣ The "Control" Paradox. Does "control" actually exist in a fast-growing organization? My take? True control is an illusion. What you’re actually aiming for is Clarity. When everyone knows the What, the When, and the How, you create a sense of order that feels like control. It allows you to delegate without abdication. You aren't controlling people; you are controlling the systems they work within. The "Pre-AI" Struggle vs. Today Looking back, we did this the hard way. This was the era of manual CRM entry, endless spreadsheets, and physical checklists. Today, the "boring" part of scaling—the documentation, the tracking, the automation—is 10x easier thanks to AI. If I were starting today, I’d use AI to build the "boring" foundations in weeks rather than years. But the fundamental truth remains the same: You cannot scale a personality; you can only scale a system. Success isn't about how hard you can work; it’s about how well your systems can work while you aren't looking. 🗓️ 6 of 10: A decade of lessons from the botanical frontlines. I’m Frederik, Founder of Lowlander. I’m sharing these reflections to help and inspire others find their own path—and to process 10 years of lessons from my own journey as an entrepreneur. 🌿 Follow me to catch the rest of the series. 💬 When it comes to your own organisation, what are the systems and processes you are most happy with? Which structures actually "set you free"? 📸 Pic credit: A (suitably boring) whiteboard of one of our very first sales dashboards—all done by hand.

March 15, 2020. The day the music stopped and the first COVID-19 lockdown began. 80% of our revenue vanished in hours. After a 2019 shortage, I had tripled our safety stock—leaving us with 1,000+ full kegs and zero bars open to sell them. There is "no sight in hindsight." You only have the information in front of you at the time. Looking back at that survival period, here are my 3 lessons (plus a bonus) for anyone facing a "ground zero" moment: 1️⃣ People & Community are the only #1 priority. When the floor falls out, look at your people, not just the bank account. During the pandemic, we visited bartenders at home with a mobile bar so they could pour again and launched a "Sales University" internally to keep the team trained and sane. If you lose the spirit of your community, there is no business left to save. 2️⃣ Cut deep and cut fast. The initial shock rarely kills you—it’s the secondary waves. I made the agonizing call to pause almost all international business to save the core. You have to be more aggressive than you think with your "more"—more saving, more focusing—to survive the "Butterfly Effect" of a crisis. 3️⃣ Necessary Momentum vs. Perfection. We repacked 20L kegs into 5L "party kegs" for home use. The hard truth? It compromised our quality standards. It wasn't the "perfect pour" I wanted Lowlander to be known for, but it was a clear necessity. In a crisis, you sometimes choose the "least bad" option to keep the heart beating. ✨ Bonus: Find a "Sanity Project." I launched the world's most sustainable gin. Off-strategy? Yes. But mentally, it saved me. It kept me connected to my passion for botanicals when business logic was failing. 🗓️ 5 of 10: A decade of lessons from the botanical frontlines. I’m Frederik, Founder of Lowlander. I’m sharing these reflections to help and inspire others find their own path—and to process 10 years of "scars and stars" from my own journey as an entrepreneur. 🌿 Follow me to catch the rest of the series. 💬 Thoughts on that time? Any other lessons learned you want to share?

"I can always tell the difference." That’s usually what the "beer experts" tell me right before they fail our blind taste tests where we challenge them to pick out the beer with low & no vs full strenght alcohol. I was recently asked by MT/Sprout for my take on the shrinking pilsner market and the explosive rise of alcohol-free. For too long, the industry treated 0.0% as an afterthought—a "liquid compromise" that tasted like wet cardboard. They focused on "removing" alcohol instead of "adding" flavour. At Lowlander, we didn’t just add a 0.0% to our range; we made the bold move to pivot our entire business to 100% Low & No. Why? Because the modern consumer isn't "quitting" beer—they are quitting mediocre drinks which are no longer relevant to them. As I told Wilke Wittebrood, when you lead with botanicals, the complexity and mouthfeel are already there. You don't need the alcohol to carry the flavor. The data is clear: the pilsner market is in structural decline. Net alcohol intake is dropping. But people aren't just drinking "less"—they are drinking differently. They are choosing when and what to drink, whether that is no, low, or "full strength." Check out the full article and analysis below.

When you’re a small brand, you can’t outspend the giants. You have to out-think them. In the early days of Lowlander, I realized that PR wasn't just about "getting in the news." It was our most powerful engine for business momentum. We didn’t have a multi-million euro marketing budget to buy billboards. So, we had to earn our space on the map. The "Christmas Tree" project is the perfect example. The idea was simple: while running in early January, I saw thousands of Christmas trees piled up like a graveyard. Most people see waste. I saw taste. In 2019, we asked people to give us their old trees so we could brew our Winter IPA with the needles. The impact was explosive. What started as a local initiative went global, featured on the BBC, CNN, and Reuters. It put us on the map overnight. We didn't stop there. We kept lighting "Firecrackers." To keep the momentum, we launched a series of "Firecrackers"—short, explosive PR moments that kept people talking: 🍰 HEMA Tompouce Beer: We turned a Dutch icon into a botanical brew that sold out instantly (and crashed Hema’s website). 💖 Love Ale: Our "Naughty by Nature" Valentine’s alternative to plastic teddy bears. We used aphrodisiacs like strawberry, rose, and damiana to prove the power of plants. 🏆 The Longest Tasting Table: A world record attempt on Dam Square with our friends at Wynand Fockink, serving "Kopstootjes" (IPA Genever) to celebrate our Silver Medal at the International Spirits Challenge. 🚚 The Beer-Garden to Go: When bars were closed during Covid, we brought the garden to your door. We drove around welcoming explorers into an immersive, full-on botanical experience. 🖋️ SIGN HERE, FOR SUBSIDY ON BEER: I went to the Dutch government in The Hague to get our carbon positive Cool Earth Lager subsidised. Why? Because we wanted to prove fighting climate change can be as easy (and tasty) as drinking a beer. PR only works when it has three ingredients: 1️⃣ Relevance: It has to connect deeply to your USP (Botanicals). 2️⃣ Cultural: It has to hit a cultural moment or friction. 3️⃣ Audacity: It has to be something a corporate giant would be too "safe" to try. And yes, it certainly helps when your PR stunts involve beer... The lesson? Creativity is the best "budget" a startup has. Don’t wait for a massive budget to tell your story. Use your lack of one as your greatest creative constraint. 🗓️ 4 of 10: A decade of lessons from the botanical frontlines. I’m Frederik, Founder of Lowlander. I’m sharing these reflections to help and inspire others find their own path—and to process 10 years of "scars and stars" from my own journey as an entrepreneur. 🌿 Follow me to catch the rest of the series. 💬 What is the most creative "PR firecracker" you’ve seen a small brand use? I’d love to hear your favourite one.