Small Aus Breweries - Packaged Beer Distribution

[Morgen_Cairns]

Hi Everyone,

My name is Morgen Cairns and as a group assignment for a Marketing
Unit in my Bachelor of Commerce studies we need to produce a report
on distribution strategies for a specific segment of an industry.

Largely due to our love of craft beer, my group decided to focus on
small/craft breweries in Australia and in particular, packaged
premium beer. We have however found it more difficult than initially
expected to locate information online regarding this and would
greatly appreciate any help you can provide.

Below are the questions that we have identified so far which we have
been unable to find answers for. I'm not sure if anyone here can help but if you can provide any information
at all on any of these questions it would be greatly appreciated.

1) Do small breweries typically engage the services of a distributor to
sell their packaged beer to local retail outlets?

2) Is it difficult for a small brewery to find a distributor willing to
distribute their product?

2) Do distributors typically place any requirments on the brewery before
they are willing to distribute their product? For example, minimum
quantities of product, minimum levels of brand awareness etc.

3) Of a carton of packaged beer that retails for $60.00, how much of the
$60.00 goes to the brewery, how much to the distributor and how much
to the retailer?

4) We have noticed in our research so far that many (if not most) small
breweries appear to not offer packaged beer through retail liquor
outlets. If you agree, are you able to offer any opinions why this is
the case? Is distribitution to retail outlets a difficult task? Is
packaging/bottling beer a difficult/expesnive task? Or is it simply
that most small breweries only produce enough beer to satisify their
'on-premises' demand?

Thank you very much for taking the time to read (and hopefully
respond!) to our plea for help. If anyone even has any suggestions on where we might be able to find the above info, that would also be a great help.

Kind regards,
Morgen Cairns

 

[wessmith]

Hi Morgan, I think you have joined the wrong forum - the folks here are homebrewers in the main. You need to tap (pun intended) into the microbrewery scene and make contact directly with the 80 odd micros operating in Australia. Google up "australian microbreweries" and off you go.

Best of luck,

Wes

 

[barls]

try contacting hopping mad brewery their website is www.hoppingmadbrewery.com.au they are the sort of brewery your after

 

[Morgen_Cairns]

Thanks for the advice guys. Greatly appreciated.