#beerdistribution Archives – PorchDrinking.com
Shifting Lanes: How Craft Breweries Are Changing Business Structures
July 8, 2024 | Julie Rhodes
Times are tough for craft beer. Once the darling of the tap walls and shelf sets, double-digit sales growth and taprooms springing up on every street corner like that green and white coffee giant. Things seemed like good times would never end, but every party has a pooper, and 2024 is looking like one of the most brutal years so far for craft brewery brands since 2020.
Distribution Dilemma: Is It Worth the Risk?
December 21, 2023 | Julie Rhodes
Craft brewery expansion plans are not what they used to be. Traditional paths to profitability usually go something like this: open a taproom, start selling beer to a few neighboring businesses (if that’s legal in your state), buy a packaging line, grow your footprint locally, sign a distribution contract with a wholesaler, expand to new markets and enjoy copious amounts of revenue. But this isn’t 2013 anymore.
Together Is Not Always Better: How Consolidation In the Middle Tier Is Impacting The Future of Craft Beer Brands
April 28, 2023 | Julie Rhodes 1
For most craft breweries, the trajectory of brand growth follows a somewhat traditional path – starting with taproom sales, progressing to selling in the wholesale channel, and then alignment with a beer wholesaler to grow the distribution footprint. Sounds simple enough on paper, but if you drill down into the nuances of selling beer wholesale, things get complicated very quickly. The US is unlike any other country in the world when it comes to the three-tier alcohol distribution system. Some states do not allow suppliers to self-distribute (sell directly) their products to licensed retail accounts, yielding asinine practices like selling beer to yourself for your own taproom. Some states are also dubbed “franchise” law states where if your brand aligns with a distributor you must endure a contractual arrangement that makes changing distributor partners harder than selling beachfront property in Arizona. And we haven’t even begun to address the large big beer elephant in the room and how many large beer distribution houses are aligned with one of two big players in the US beer market. For many craft brands that are just getting started or fall into the category of small to medium-sized producers, strategizing how to enter the wholesale channel is a formidable challenge, including contending with a host of other legislative, litigious, and anti-competitive issues in the middle tier that have surfaced over the past few decades. As if growing craft beer producers didn’t have enough to contend with these days in the form of rising costs of goods, labor shortages, inflation, and the squeeze from alternative beverage choices in the marketplace, woes like wholesaler consolidation, unfair trade practices, and antiquated beverage alcohol regulations are making the middle tier the next big battleground for craft beer brands.
The Return on Investment of CBC 2022
May 24, 2022 | Julie Rhodes
For a vast number of current and aspiring beer professionals, the annual Craft Brewers Conference hosted by the Brewers Association is THE go-to industry conference for all things beer-related. It’s four full days of seminars, workshops, and social networking events, plus a seemingly endless trade show floor ripe with vendors enthusiastically waiting to sell you everything from gaskets and exotic hops to insurance and glycol systems. Most attendees return home with swag bags full of branded goodies and heads full of ideas. But what’s the true return on investment (ROI) of attending the Craft Brewers Conference when it comes to growing the bottom line of your brewery business? If you or your team didn’t attend the conference, this will give you some insight into what was missed and for those that did attend, some ideas for how to revisit sessions and take advantage of all that was offered to help you optimize the business side of your brewery.
Forager Brewing Company Launches Humble Forager
November 12, 2019 | Max Sundermeyer
Last month, Forager Brewing Company‘s head brewer, Austin Jevne, took to social media to announce the brewery’s latest adventure: a new brand and distribution brewery, Humble Forager Brewery.
Contract brewing out of Octopi Brewing in Waunakee, WI, Humble Forager will use some of FBC’s favorite recipes to create a series of rotating pastry stouts, hazy DIPAs and fruited sour ales. The beers will be distributed to bars and liquor stores in Wisconsin, Minnesota and select locations in the Southeast in early 2020.
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