Over the past 25 years, we have helped over 5,000 entrepreneurs and business owners create business plans to start and grow their breweries. On this page, we will first give you some background information with regards to the importance of the business planning process. We will then go through a brewery business plan step-by-step so you can create your plan today.
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A business plan provides a snapshot of your brewery or microbrewery as it stands today, and lays out your growth plan for the next five years. It explains your business goals and your strategy for reaching them. It also includes market research to support your plans.
If you’re looking to start a brewery or grow your existing brewery you need a business plan. A business plan will help you raise funding, if needed, and plan out the growth of your brewery in order to improve your brewery’s success. Your brewery business plan is a living document that should be updated annually as your brewery concept grows and changes.
With regards to funding, the main sources of secure funding for a brewery are bank loans and angel investors.
Banks will want to review your business plan and gain confidence that you will be able to repay your loan and interest. To acquire this confidence, the loan officer will not only want to confirm that your financials are reasonable, but they will also want to see a professional plan. Such a plan will give them the confidence that you can successfully and professionally operate a business.
The second most common form of secure funding for a brewery is angel investors. Angel investors are wealthy individuals who will write you a check. They will either take equity in return for their funding or, like a bank, they will give you a loan.
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If you’d like to quickly and easily complete your business plan, download Growthink’s Ultimate Brewery Business Plan Template and complete your plan and financial model in hours.
A brewery business plan should include 10 key elements as follows:
Your executive summary provides an introduction to your business plan, but it is normally the last section you write because it provides a summary of each key section of your plan.
The goal of your Executive Summary is to quickly engage the reader. Explain to them the type of brewing company you are operating and the status; for example, are you a startup, do you have a craft brewery that you would like to grow, or are you operating a chain of brewpubs?
Next, provide an overview of each of the subsequent sections of your plan. For example, give a brief overview of the craft brewery industry. Detail your direct competitors. Give an overview of your target customers. Provide a snapshot of your marketing strategy and plan. Identify the key members of your team. And offer an overview of your financial plan.
In your company analysis, you will detail the type of brewing company you are operating.
For example, you might operate one of the following 6 core types of craft breweries:
In addition to explaining the type of brewery you operate, the Company Analysis section of your business plan needs to provide background on the business.
Include answers to questions such as:
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In your industry analysis, you need to provide an overview of the brewery business.
While this may seem unnecessary, it serves multiple purposes.
First, researching the brewing industry educates you. It helps you understand the market in which you are operating.
Secondly, market research can improve your strategy particularly if your research identifies market trends. For example, if there was a trend towards lighter beer consumption, it would be helpful to ensure your plan calls for plenty of lighter brew options.
The third reason for market research is to prove to readers that you are an expert in your industry. By conducting the research and presenting it in your plan, you achieve just that.
The following questions should be answered in the industry analysis section of your brewery business plan:
The customer analysis section of your brewery business plan must detail the customers you serve and/or expect to serve.
The following are examples of customer segments: college students, sports enthusiasts, soccer moms, techies, baby boomers, etc.
As you can imagine, the customer segment(s) you choose will have a great impact on the type of brewery you operate. Clearly, baby boomers would want a different atmosphere, pricing, and product options, and would respond to different marketing promotions than college students.
Try to break out your target customers in terms of their demographic and psychographic profiles. With regards to demographics, include a discussion of the ages, genders, locations, and income levels of the customers you seek to serve. Because most breweries primarily serve customers living in the same city or town, such demographic information is easy to find on government websites.
Psychographic profiles explain the wants and needs of your target customers. The more you can understand and define these needs, the better you will do in attracting and retaining your customers.
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Your competitive analysis should identify the indirect and direct competitors your business faces and then focus on the latter.
With regards to direct competition, you want to detail the other breweries with which you compete. Most likely, your competitors will be other breweries and brewpubs located in your region.
Indirect competitors are other options that customers have to purchase from you that aren’t in the same target market or industry but may offer similar products or services. This primarily includes restaurants (for brewpubs) and other products (spirits, wine) for microbreweries. You need to mention such competition to show you understand that not everyone who drinks alcohol frequents a brewery.
For each such competitor, provide an overview of their businesses and document their strengths and weaknesses. Unless you once worked at your competitors’ businesses, it will be impossible to know everything about them. But you should be able to find out key things about them such as:
With regards to the last two questions, think about your answers from the customers’ perspective.
The final part of your competitive analysis section is to document your areas of competitive advantage. For example:
Think about ways you will outperform your competition or ways to make your brewery unique and document them in this section of your plan.
Traditionally, this section includes the four P’s: Product, Price, Place, and Promotion. For a brewery business plan, you should include the following:
In the product section, you should reiterate the type of brewery that you documented in your Company Analysis. Then, detail the specific products you will be offering. For example, will you brew IPAs, pilsners, stouts, etc.?
Document the prices you will offer and how they compare to your competitors. Essentially in the product and price sub-sections, you are presenting the menu items you offer and their prices.
Place refers to the location of your brewery. Document your location and mention how the location will impact your success. For example, is your brewery located next to a heavily populated office building, or gym, etc.? Discuss how your location might provide a steady stream of customers. Also, if you operate or plan to operate kiosks, detail the locations where the kiosks will be placed.
The final part of your brewery marketing plan is the promotions section. Here you will document how you will drive customers to your location(s). The following are some promotional methods you might consider:
Finish Your Business Plan Today!
If you’d like to quickly and easily complete your business plan, download Growthink’s Ultimate Brewery Business Plan Template and complete your plan and financial model in hours.
While the earlier sections of your business plan explained your goals, the business operations section describes how you will meet them. Your operations plan should have two distinct sections as follows.
Everyday short-term processes include all of the tasks involved in running your brewery such as brewing beer, serving customers, procuring supplies, keeping the store clean, inventory management, etc.
Long-term goals are the milestones you hope to achieve. These could include the dates when you expect to serve your X,000th customer, or when you hope to reach $X in sales. It could also be when you expect to hire your Xth employee or launch in new markets.
To demonstrate your brewery’s ability to succeed as a business, a strong leadership team is essential. Highlight your key players’ backgrounds, emphasizing those skills and experiences that prove their ability to grow a brewing company.
Ideally, you and/or your team members have direct experience in the brewery business. If so, highlight this experience and expertise. But also highlight any experience that you think will help your business succeed.
If your team is lacking, consider assembling an advisory board. An advisory board would include 2 to 8 individuals who would act as mentors to your business. They would help answer questions and provide strategic guidance. If needed, look for advisory board members with experience in breweries and/or successfully running retail and small businesses.
Your financial plan should include your 5-year financial statement broken out both monthly or quarterly for the first year and then annually. Your financial statements include your income statement, balance sheet, and cash flow statements.
An income statement is more commonly called a Profit and Loss statement or P&L. It shows your revenues and then subtracts your costs to show whether you turned a profit or not.
In developing your income statement, you need to create a sales forecast. For example, will you serve 100 customers per day or 200? And will sales grow by 2% or 10% per year? As you can imagine, your choice of assumptions will greatly impact the financial forecasts for your business. As much as possible, conduct research to try to root your assumptions in reality.
While balance sheets include much information, to simplify them to the key items you need to know about, balance sheets show your assets and liabilities. For instance, if you spend $100,000 on building out your brewery, that will not give you immediate profits. Rather it is an asset that will hopefully help you generate profits for years to come. Likewise, if a bank writes you a check for $100.000, you don’t need to pay it back immediately. Rather, that is a liability you will pay back over time.
Your projected cash flow statement will help determine how much money you need to start or grow your business and make sure you never run out of money. What most entrepreneurs and business owners don’t realize is that you can turn a profit but run out of money and go bankrupt. For example, let’s say a company approached you with a $100,000 brewing contract, that would cost you $50,000 to fulfill. Well, in most cases, you would have to pay that $50,000 now for supplies, brewing equipment rentals, employee salaries, etc. But let’s say the company didn’t pay you for 180 days. During that 180 day period, you could run out of money.
In developing your Income Statement and Balance Sheets be sure to include several of the key start-up costs:
Attach your full financial projections in the appendix of your plan along with any supporting documents that make your plan more compelling. For example, you might include your store design blueprint or location lease.
You can download our free brewery business plan PDF template here. Using a brewery business plan example can help you create your own business plan from scratch.
Putting together a business plan for your brewery will improve your chances of success. The process of developing your plan will help you better understand the brewery market, your competition, and your customers. You will also gain a marketing plan to better attract and serve customers, an operations plan to focus your efforts, and financial projections that give you goals to strive for and keep your company focused.
To further help you, we have other articles on key aspects of how to start your brewery. and running it effectively. Specifically, our brewery marketing plan will help you develop the best promotions strategy. Our brewery startup costs post will let you know what costs to expect. Other resources you might might find helpful include:
Don’t you wish there was a faster, easier way to finish your Brewery business plan?
With Growthink’s Ultimate Brewery Business Plan Template you can finish your plan in just 8 hours or less!
Click here to finish your Brewery business plan today.
Since 1999, Growthink has developed business plans for thousands of companies who have gone on to achieve tremendous success.
Click here to see how Growthink’s business plan services can give you a winning business plan.
