Non-alcoholic (NA) beer maker Athletic Brewing Company will increase prices for many of its offerings, starting February 15, citing inflationary cost pressures from across the supply chain.
The Stratford, Connecticut-based brewery announced the price changes in an email newsletter to consumers Wednesday.
“Like many in our industry and manufacturing at large, we are seeing inflationary pressures across our entire business from farm to glass,” the company wrote. “In order to deliver on our commitments to quality, our environment, and to provide consistent jobs for our teammates, we need to move up as well.”
The increases will be dependent on channels, but will be in the +5% range, co-founder and CEO Bill Shufelt told Brewbound. On the Athletic website, the brewery’s various beers are priced at $12.99 per 6-pack, and $49.99 for its variety 24-pack. Athletic’s DayPack hop-infused flavored seltzer ($9.99/6-pack) and its merchandise will be exempt from the price increase.
“Despite rising inflationary pressures, we had held off on price increases in 2019, 2020 and 2021,” Shufelt said. “But we’ve always had a commitment to using the best ingredients, hiring the best teammates, [and] we build and run all our own breweries, so we’re investing a ton of money in our business. And unfortunately, everything from grain to glass and shipping is getting more expensive.”
Subscriptions to the Athletic Club – the brewery’s beer club that offers monthly deliveries of 12, 18 or 24 beers – will also increase in price. Anyone with a subscription prior to February 15 will be charged existing pricing until December 31.
“We value our customers so much, and we didn’t want to try to slide [the increases] out there,” Shufelt said. “We figured we might as well communicate exactly why we’re going up in prices and the pressures we’re feeling as a team, but also to reiterate our commitments to making incredible, world-changing beer. [The newsletter] was a good chance for us to be transparent about our commitment to high quality ingredients and excellence in beer.”
The increase will also help the brewery continue its “broader mission,” which includes its Two for the Trails program, according to CMO Andrew Katz, who joined the company in October. With the program, Athletic donates 2% of its sales to “support active and healthy lifestyles in the outdoors,” including funding the refurbishment of trails across the country. In 2021, the brewery donated more than $1 million through the program – its largest donation to date.
Despite the supply chain pressures, Athletic is coming off one of its best-performing Dry Januarys, exceeding the company’s expectations by more than 100%, Katz told Brewbound.
“The trends of health and wellness gain more and more momentum every year, and those trends definitely continued in 2021.” Shufelt said. “This year was equivalent or bigger than last year off a much bigger base, and it’s definitely a reflection of our great teammates all over the country doing exciting stuff on the marketing front, as well as the incredible retail partners and distribution partners who are really buying into our programming to reach new customers and grow the beer category overall.”
To continue the Dry January momentum, Athletic has invested in a broadcast campaign for the 2022 Winter Olympics. The brewery will be featured in 228 spots on NBC from February 3-20, across 10 key markets: Boston, Dallas-Fort Worth, Hartford, Los Angeles, Miami-Ft. Lauderdale, New York, Philadelphia, San Diego, San Francisco and Washington, D.C.
“We really want to stay top of mind,” Katz said. “The Olympics are always such an incredible media event and one of the very few where we really get huge numbers of households and, in particular, adults watching TV for extended periods of time. So we felt like it was a great opportunity to continue to drive brand recognition during these peak moments of human performance.”
A 30-second commercial will be featured as part of Athletic’s “Beer Fit For All Times” campaign, which shows various occasions fit for drinking an NA beer. The spot will reach more than 33 million households and more than 47 million adults in the U.S., Katz said.
Athletic has partnered with sporting events numerous times, including being named the official NA beer provider for the Ironman Global series, and hosting the first NA beer mile last October.
“Non-alcoholic beer was so stigmatized, we wanted to reach people in a state where they were happy, feeling celebratory, and in a good mood, and really receptive to trying something super refreshing and new,” Shufelt said. “Sporting event sampling turned out to be just that, and we’ve really ramped that up over the years to doing well over 1,000 events last year.”
Since its founding in 2018, Athletic has grown to claim about 50% of the NA craft beer segment, according to Shufelt. The company will open its third location in the middle of this year – a 150,000 barrel brewery in Milford, Connecticut, funded by a $50 million Series C funding round that closed in May. The facility will increase Athletic’s capacity to 300,000 barrels with facilities on both coasts, following the opening of its San Diego-based production brewery in March 2020.