Story by the Australian Financial Review
Read the Financial Review’s full story here
BYRON BAY beer company Stone & Wood is preparing to hit the button on yet another expansion of its largest brewery as sales jump by 60 per cent to more than $30 million, which co-founder Jamie Cook attributes in part to “corporate comb-overs” by big rival brewers.
That is a reference to the attempts by brewing giants around the world to find some growth in the premium and craft beer segments by launching their own boutique brands or buying up smaller brewers to try to compensate in a small way for the declining growth in their core mainstream beer sales.
“The big guys are trying all sorts of U-turns,” Mr Cook said on Monday.
“It’s a corporate comb-over by the big players as we like to call it here, and drinkers can see through it. People scratch back the label and can see the real story,” Mr Cook said, referring to the “comb-over” hairstyle synonymous with balding males trying to hide the evidence of fading vitality.
Stone & Wood already invested $12 million on a second brewery at Murwillumbah which it opened in 2014, but even that is now getting close to its production limit of about 12 million litres of beer. “That capacity will get us through this summer, just,” Mr Cook said.
It means that Stone & Wood is poised to give the green light on a further expansion after it traverses this summer’s peak season and eyes a bigger share of Australia’s $14 billion beer market.
“We’re looking at expansion in the next 12 months”
The Murwillumbah brewery is about 40km from the original Byron Bay brewery set up by Stone & Wood in 2008. That small brewery still operates.
Stone & Wood, which is 80 per cent-owned by four founders comprising Mr Cook, Brad Rogers, Ross Jurisich who were all former Carlton & United Breweries staff, and Byron Bay publican Tom Mooney, employs about 100 permanent staff and 15 casuals.