Small brewers gather for taste of industry co-operative

February 2, 2010

Chris Miller of Harvieston in Alloa, left, Bruce Williams of Williams Brothers, also Alloa, Petra Wetzel, and Richard McLelland of Brew Dog in Fraserburgh at the Glasgow gathering

Representatives from some 35 of the country’s brewing companies gathered in Glasgow’s East End recently to discuss the creation of a Scottish small brewers’ association.
The event, which was hosted by WEST Brewery, was held at Templeton Business Centre and attracted delegates from as far north as Orkney.
Petra Wetzel, WEST managing director, said she wanted to move the idea of a Scottish association forward, asking industry partners to get together ‘and talk about things like procurement, logistics, distribution, bottling, quality assurance, marketing, all of these things which affect us all as brewers and could be really worthwhile to exchange ideas on’.
Petra, from Bavaria, is driven by her ideas, and despite being new to the brewing industry is not slow in moving her ideas forward.
‘Sometimes it takes a total outsider – who’s a bit bonkers – to really kind of initiate something like that,’ she said. ‘We have a great facility here, a great beer hall, it was a natural fit for WEST to initiate something like this.’
She added: ‘I think it’s really positive the way people have responded to the idea of starting a co-operative. It wouldn’t just be a trade association. It would go a step farther and say that we could start a co-operative for purchasing, whether that would be for utilities, services, raw materials.
‘We are really keen to explore the idea of starting a bottling co-operative for all the Scottish brewers to combine forces and have this in the central belt that would serve all the small brewers.’
With a British brewing landscape that is dominated by perhaps a dozen household names, many of which are now owned by overseas shareholders, Petra feels that strength in numbers in Scotland is the way forward to compete with the giant players.
‘If we can help each other to work more effectively- and at the end of the day we’re all in business, we’re not running charities - that’s all that matters.’
There is also the hope that co-operation will mean benefits to the Scottish economy, and from there, jobs.
‘A lot of the brewers are sending product down to England to get bottled. Diageo is making people redundant in Kilmarnock. Now, that’s whisky. At the end of the day, there are skilled workers in Kilmarnock who have worked in bottling who will lose their jobs … if we could create a bottling facility in Scotland employing some of those people then we have gained.’

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