Beavertown revs up online sales during pandemic

United Kingdom | Craft brewer Beavertown hopes that this year’s sales will come in at least flat on last year’s levels. In its 2019/20 financial year, it grew sales nearly 80 percent to around GBP 35 million (USD 47 million), The Telegraph newspaper reports.

When the government shut down the UK’s hospitality industry, probably 85 percent of Beavertown’s business was wiped out. Luckily, Beavertown has good relationships with some of the big supermarket chains, and off-premise sales soared.

Better still, its online shop, which was doing GBP 1,000 (USD 1,300) in sales per week before the lockdown, was suddenly seeing sales of  GBP 100,000 per week, and soon went from a two-person outfit to one employing eight people, Logan Plant, Beavertown’s founder told media.

In August, Beavertown opened a new brewery in Enfield, North London, which it claims is the “largest in London”. Originally, the brewery was expected to come on stream in April.

According to Beavertown, the new 129,000 square foot (12,000 square metre) production site will expand the company’s capacity, allowing it to deliver up to 500,000 hl beer annually – ten times more than at its original site in Tottenham, London.

The expansion became possible after Heineken purchased a 49 percent stake in Beavertown in 2018 and chipped in GBP 40 million (USD 54 million) for investments.