Retail vs wholesale sales percentages

[SubduedDave]

Hello all,

I visited one post similar to this one a moment ago, but it was also from 2013, which in beer years, is eons from today. So I'm looking for a fresh perspective given the current market for beer, especially in the PNW where we are hoping to be.

My partner and I are plannng a brewery/taproom in Bellingham, WA. We are about halfway through fundraising, and have most things in place to pull the triggers once we have the money. We have what we believe to be solid numbers in place concerning sales and production, but we're also curious as to what others are experiencing; nationally, but input from the PNW would especially be appreciated.

We will be a 90 seat taproom with no kitchen, but food trucks out front and the ability to bring in any outside food. We'll have some light snacks, but otherwise will just be serving beer. Mostly ours, but some guest taps as well. We'll be going straight from the unis into serving tanks in the cool room. Our plan is to be as local as possible, self-distributing around town and the immediate area with as few accounts as we can get away with. In other words, the more through the taproom via growlers and pints, the better. We will be at the convergence of three neighborhoods that are underserved at the moment with a 15 bbl system.

For those of you with a similar setup, what is your experience with retail vs wholesale sales, be it per week, year, month, whatever. Rough percentages would be great, and if you were further able to break that down to growlers vs pints, then you would be the wind beneath my wings. Many thanks.

[Brandjes]

200bbls last year. 80% tap room 20% wholesale. Enumclaw WA. 80% pints 20% growler

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[Bainbridge]

Like almost anything it...depends. There's so many variables, this questions is always just a shot in the dark.

Think about it in terms of things that will increase or decrease wholesale. What sort of volume do you think you can move as the seventh(?) brewery in the Bellingham-area? And add like a dozen more breweries by just expanding the area a little bit. Plus all the other state and regional brewers. There's more than 300 breweries in this state. It's a jungle out there right now. Considering that there really isn't a brewery up there that isn't reasonably well respected you'll have a Cinderella period as the new kid on the block, but then it will be about keeping in touch constantly and making accounts happy as much as it will be about making good beer.

So the smartest move is generally to push taproom sales as far as you can first. Bellingham is a reasonably hip beer city so you shouldn't have too much trouble getting people in. What are your Best/Average/Worst projections for volume of pints and growlers and whatnot. That's your target for retail.

Wholesale, self-distributed, local area. Full time sales and delivery person? Owner doing it all their spare time? Make a list of the accounts you intend to sell to. How often could your brewery rep personally visit each account to say "How's it going, here try this, need a keg this week?" Assume success/failure rates. Like if one in four buys a keg, what's that volume look like? The Green Frog and Elizabeth Station will almost certainly take kegs, but the Good Beer Bars of the world do not produce all that much volume on the whole. Can you sell to the corner Italian restaurant? That dive bar down the highway? That fancy new place downtown? Who's your ideal customer and how many accounts do you need to meet your numbers? Project a sales target and work to meet it. Set it at the minimum you need to break even, then pleasantly surprise yourselves when you crush that target!

But here on little ol Bainbridge Island we moved 400bbls in the taproom last year, and another 250bbls to local accounts. And that was just our mighty taproom staff of three, and our single van. Our distributor handles the rest of the Sound, so we have additional volume going out to them as well.

[SubduedDave]

Thanks guys. Good info for sure. We are definitely planning on maxing the taproom side of things. We just don't want to shoot ourselves in the foot either production-wise, and of course, revenue-wise. Our plan right now is for 80% taproom (growlers/pints/pitchers) and 20% self-distributed keg sales. Bellingham is a beer guzzling town, for sure. But can we really do that much volume in the taproom? The million dollar question.

[ChesterBrew]

Bellingham is a beer guzzling town, for sure. But can we really do that much volume in the taproom? The million dollar question.

Quantify what that volume translates to in how many people your place can accommodate, what you expect the breakdown of tasters/pints/growlers to be, and how many times you expect that seat to turn over the course of being open. Factor in a percentage of complimentary pours, spillage, and waste as well, and you'll start to flesh out a picture of what you can reasonably expect in a best-case scenario.