3 minute read
Brands
by 55 North
HOFMIESTER
Hofmesiter looks to raise £600k
Investors now have the chance to join the crowdfunding campaign and buy shares.
Hofmeister, the revamped Bavarian premium lager brand, has launched a crowdfunding campaign to attract investors.
The brand was brought back to life by two British drinks entrepreneurs, Richard Longhurst and Spencer Chambers, who acquired it from Heineken in 2016. They then travelled to Bavaria to find a local brewery that could help reinvent it as an authentic, locally brewed super high quality Helles lager made in line with Germany purity laws that date back to 1516.
The brand believes there is a gap in the market to catapult a Bavarian beer to the same level of success seen by its counterparts from other European countries. Despite Bavaria being a brewing powerhouse visited by more than six million people each year just for Oktoberfest, its beer is missing from the premium world lager brand line-up.
Hofmeister is the fourth most recognised brand by UK consumers in the premium world lager category, according to new independent research, despite only returning to these shores four years ago. The brand has also won exclusive accounts at St. Pancras Renaissance Hotel and The Connaught Hotel, with off-trade listings including Ocado, Virgin Wines, Drink Supermarket, and Beer Hawk.
The brand also believes Hofmeister is ideally placed to help lead the fast-growing premium world lager category, currently worth £2.5bn in the UK on-trade, with premium beer categories bucking overall beer trends, growing in volume and value, as consumers are prepared to pay for better quality drinks. Since the re-opening of the industry post-pandemic, premium world beers accounted for 33% of all lager sales by value in the second quarter of 2021 – up six percentage points from the same period in 2019.
Longhurst said: “The power of this brand is incredible. The potential scale is enormous. Anyone who grew up with Hofmeister has got a genuine affection for it. It just makes you smile and that is very special.” distribution, targeted digital marketing/PR and trade marketing to bring the brand to life, and new hardware to support the rapid growth of distribution. The crowdfunding campaign, which launched on Seedrs.com this week, also sees the return of ‘George’, the bear who became the face and personality of the brand in its heyday in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Gone is the pork pie hat, and in its place is a fully grown-up,
The brand’s growth potential has already attracted senior beer and hospitality leaders to invest in it and be part of its senior management team, including top executives from Ei Group, Greene King, Camden Town Brewery and Heineken. Spencer Chambers, Joint Chief Executive, said: “They have that brand and operational experience and, crucially have the contacts, and the network to get us a foot in the door, and a seat at the table.”
Investment will be focused on hiring new sales managers to accelerate seven foot bear who features in a chatshow video discussing why people should invest in the brand.
Chambers said: “We’ve had an incredible start to the campaign. We are quickly approaching our minimum raise target of £600,000 and it looks like we will have pledges of investment well beyond that amount - if that is the case, then the full amount of share investment will be allotted. We have a very compelling growth strategy and would be excited to utilise the over funding to accelerate that.”
● Visit the Seedrs campaign page.
