It’s a particularly special growth milestone when you realize that your craft brewing business has outgrown your brewhouse. So many breweries start with barebones, used brewing equipment and once their brands take off, suddenly realize their needs for expansion are going to outpace the flow of capital into the business. You know you want to expand your brewhouse, but you want to do so on a budget. Here are some actionable tips and strategies to help brewers achieve this goal without breaking the bank.
Planning for Expansion: Setting the Foundation
Before you start busting up any concrete, it’s important to have a solid logistical and financial plan for your brewhouse expansion. Don’t start making any plans to purchase real estate or equipment before calculating your projects for future market demand and long-term goals. What do you anticipate your production capacity needs will be in the next 12 months compared to 5 years down the road? Build your brewhouse to achieve your long-term goals so you can focus on production and marketing in the wake of this massive project.
Budget Wisely and Allocate Resources Efficiently
As you build your budget for a brewhouse expansion the numbers can quickly start spiraling out of control. Look at the categories of your budget for opportunities to save money and allocate resources more efficiently. Purchasing reliably sourced used brewing equipment can be a fantastic way to cut tens of thousands of dollars from your brewhouse expansion budget. Many brewers falsely assume that purchasing used equipment excludes them from access to financed capital, but at Brewery Finance we can provide equipment finance loans to purchase used brewing equipment and have a network of reliable vendors we can recommend.
Another idea is to use a method called phased expansion to spread costs over time. By accurately projecting your growth needs you can move into a large enough space to onboard more equipment over time. Costs for your ongoing expansion can be built into your annual operating budget and projected out over a period of 5-10 years.
Financing Options for Craft Brewers
Every expansion is going to require the helping hand of some lended capital. There are many options available to craft brewers, such as traditional loans, SBA loans, and crowdfunding. Here at Brewery Finance, we specialize in working explicitly with craft breweries to access capital for brewhouse expansions, equipment purchases, working capital loans, and more. Years of context in the craft brewing industry allow us to process your application quickly and without fuss. We have supported dozens of breweries through this very process of building out bigger brewhouses on a budget.
Contact Brewery Finance today to learn more about accessing capital to support your brewhouse expansion.