Full Sail Brewing founder and CEO on growth in number of craft breweries
I think there are some interesting trends to look at against [growth in number of brewers]. One is the number of distributors we have now versus the number we had in 1995. There were 5,500 distributors and now there are only 2,000. The other number that is interesting is per capita beer consumption in the U.S.. It is declined by over 20% since 1990. So in some sense what we have with all these breweries, brands and SKUs is all this volume trying to go through this pipe. And that pipe, beer distributors and beer consumption, has basically been shrinking. And that really is a cause for concern. How much more complexity can this system handle?
– Irene Firmat via Beverage World webinar.
Breweries: Full Sail Brewing
No one likes negative news but it is very true, there are some serious warnings on the horizon. The decline in beer consumption is particularly worrying.
Sure, there are reasons for concern. The population as a whole is getting older and drinking less beer. Nevertheless, we’re paying a lot more on average for the beer than 20 years ago ( aka quality vs quantity ). The number of distributors is nearly meaningless. For example, politicians and pundits bemoan the reduction in the number of oil refinieries in the US. Yet there is more production in the past despite those closings. There may be less distributors but that doesn’t mean that mean there’s less capacity for distribution.
I think it’s partly due to BMC distributors handling more craft beer, leaving less room for independent distributors. I’ve seen a lot of breweries switch to a BMC distributor from a more local distributor quite a bit in the last year or so.