UK – Scottish brewing startup and the world’s largesr craft beer company BrewDog is dreaming big, and has its eyes set on becoming the world’s leading beer brand by 2030.
Founded in 2007 by James Watt and Martin Dickie, BrewDog has rapidly grown and today boast of being the world’s leading craft brewer the world’s most valuable independent beer brand.
Additionally, BrewDog is currently the world’s largest craft beer bar operator, America’s fastest growing brewery, and the world’s largest crowdfunded business.
The company is also proud to note that its Punk IPA (India Pale Ale) is the world’s best-selling IPA.
The company’s achievement so far is admirable but wanting to become the world’s leading beer brand is a whole different ball game.
Latest figures from Statista show that AB InBev’s Budweiser is currently the most valued beer brand worldwide with a worth of US$14.65 billion as at 2020.
Heineken comes in second and is estimated to be worth US$11. 136 while Stella Artois ranked third with a value of 9.97 billion.
As of February 2021, Brewdog had a valuation of US$100 million, scarcely a 10th of the value of the world’s leading beer brand.
With the odds clearly against BrewDog, founder and CEO James Wyatt says: “Over the next 10 years, we want to build the world’s leading beer brand. For context, we are currently 19th on the global list.”
Wyatt bemoans that is staggering how little innovation, premiumisation or disruption we have seen in beer at the global level, given the level of innovation we have seen in other industries over the last decade.
Companies such as Tesla and Apple have disrupted their respective industries and grown into becoming the largest and arguably the most respectable.
There has however been no premium global beer brand successfully launched in the last 100 years and Wyatt believes disruption in this market is long overdue and that is precisely the mission of BrewDog in the coming 10 years.
Wyatt believes that BrewDog has a change in disrupting the beer industry, given the opportunities presented by the corona virus pandemic.
He notes that the pandemic will accelerate consumer shift to brands with purpose, with solid sustainability credentials, with quality at their core and who genuinely care- attributes which his company boast of.
The growth of IPA -its strongest beer- is also another factor that Wyatt hopes to leverage on in addition to its direct selling to consumer which it also expects to grow in importance in the coming decade.
The company also plans to plunge into premium lager given that it still dominates the global beer market.
“For us to become the world’s most valuable beer brand we have to use Lost Lager to take the fight to big beer,” says Wyatt.
“Our roots will always be in hardcore craft beers and we will continue to make as many barrel-aged, spontaneously fermented, small batch and amplified beers just as we always have,” added Wyatt.
The company also plans to invest more on sustainability to align to current trend where consumers increasingly use a brands sustainability credentials to govern how they spend their money.
BrewDog in the 13 years of existence has achieved more than most other brands could do in decades. Despite the odds being great, Wyatt is confident they will emerge victorious. “We do this by making great beer, that is great for the planet, for us all.”
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