XXXXXXXX LOCKDOWN | XXXXXXXX LOGBOOK
A PIVOTAL MOMENT: BREWERIES COMPARE NOTES IN OUR VIRTUAL INDUSTRY ROUNDTABLE Patio at BNA Brewing in Kelowna
F
or BC breweries, 2020 has been a year like no other. To get specific about what the industry has been through, we reached out to management at .
Our province-wide panel includes Andrés Amaya of Yeast Van's Andina Brewing, Jill Jarrett of Kelowna's BNA Brewing, Arnold Tobler of Langley's Farm Country, Susi Foerg of Rustic Reel in Kelowna's North End, Megan Durno of Mighty Peace in Fort St. John, Sam Payne of The Parkside Brewery on Port Moody's #BrewersRow, Chris Bunnage of Freddy's Brewpub in Kelowna, Chloe Smith of Townsite Brewing in Powell River, and the two Kents: Mr. Donaldson of Golden's Whitetooth Brewing and Mr. Orton of Wheelhouse Brewing in Prince Rupert. Appropriately for the moment, we present their responses in virtual group chat format. Direct your eyes also to our website for full-length one-on-one interviews with these industry insiders.
HOW BAD WAS THE INITIAL SHUTDOWN? Susi Foerg: Oh gosh. It has been haaaaaaard. Kent Donaldson: Does anybody anticipate a pandemic? You quickly adopt a siege mentality because your very existence as a going concern is at stake. Arnold Tobler: Shutting our doors after only 3 months was a real blow! Megan Durno: We went from about 15 staff members to 4. Andrés Amaya: We had to lay off 95% of our staff. Jill Jarrett: Having just completed a large tasting room expansion, we were frankly just lost. Almost everything we had invested into this business was aimed at having people in our space. It definitely felt like we had the rug pulled out from us. Chloe Smith: The chaos was incredibly difficult to navigate. I used our barrel room as a refuge for tears when I got overwhelmed. 8 WHAT'S BREWING FA L L 2020
WHAT WAS LOCKDOWN LIKE? HOW MUCH WERE YOU ABLE TO PIVOT TO PACKAGING, RETAIL, AND ONLINE SALES? We were fortunate to have a new canning line running in January. So when March lockdown started, we were able to quickly pivot to selling more packaged beer. I hadn’t planned to focus much on distribution, so when we shut down there was no other revenue stream coming in. We lost 100% of our draft accounts, including our own tasting room. Sam Payne: We went to 100% retail and off-sales. Zero tasting room sales. Luckily, our customers were extremely supportive and demand was steady [for retail sales]. We saw many of the same faces coming through the doors every week. An unexpected positive of our taproom closing was that our wholesale program really took off. Kent Orton: Closing our lounge meant a big reduction in revenue and took some soul-searching. Thankfully, we were able to quickly get our online store open. Like most others, we scrambled to get an online shop up & running. We’re definitely keeping it going, as there are many who don’t feel safe to venture out yet and they still need good beer! Chris Bunnage: This year, Freddy’s is undergoing a major renovation. Originally we were going to keep the brewpub side open during renovations, but with COVID capacity limitations that changed [the brewpub stayed closed, while the bowling and dining areas stayed open].
