Two St. Louis craft breweries are forming a partnership.
Schlafly Beer and non-alcoholic beer maker WellBeing Brewing Co. announced a joint venture Thursday that will see Schlafly manage sales and production of WellBeing’s brands while also working with the company’s existing contract brewing and distribution partners.
Partnering with WellBeing gives Schlafly access to a portfolio of non-alcoholic beer brands with shared local roots.
In a statement, Schlafly CEO Fran Caradonna told Brewbound that “there has been no change in ownership or control of WellBeing or Schlafly.”
“The companies are working shoulder to shoulder as partners, each in their respective areas of strength, and sharing the profits,” she added.
“This is truly a joint venture. It allows us to scale our brand to a new level,” added WellBeing co-founder and CEO Jeff Stevens in a press release. “We can utilize Schlafly’s operational resources, yet still grow our brand under our vision. As craft brewers look for ways to adapt to a changing consumer landscape, non-alcoholic offerings are becoming essential. We believe that we can be a driver of innovation across the adult non-alcoholic space.”
WellBeing’s brands will be sold throughout Schlafly’s distribution footprint, which covers Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, Michigan, Virginia, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, and Washington, D.C.
Caradonna told Brewbound that the two companies’ distribution “footprints have some overlap, but WellBeing’s distribution is wider while Schlafly’s is deeper.”
“We each use different wholesalers in our home market, but we won’t be making any changes as a result of this joint venture,” she added. “Our goal is to create and maintain the most effective distribution for both Schlafly and WellBeing, and sometimes that might mean they’re together in the same house and other times it may not.”
WellBeing will be able to leverage Schlafly’s management and operational capabilities, while maintaining its focus on innovation, overseeing product development, marketing, content, publicity and its e-commerce sales.
WellBeing’s offerings will continue to be contract produced at O’Fallon Brewery in Maryland Heights, Missouri, and New Realm Brewing’s Virginia Beach, Virginia, location. Schlafly will produce some WellBeing offerings in the future, but the company does “not plan to move all production here,” according to Caradonna.
“I expect increased sales will keep us all quite busy making WellBeing NA beers,” she added.
Schlafly will also manage back-of-house functions such as inventory, raw materials procurement, logistics and sales.
The JV is in effect immediately, with WellBeing beers brewed by Schlafly expected to hit retailers later this year.
Year-to-date through June 26, dollar sales of non-alcoholic beer are up +13.4%, to nearly $117.5 million, in multi-outlet and convenience stores tracked by market research firm IRI. NA beer’s share of beer category dollars have also increased .08%, to .61%. However, off-premise scans only capture part of the sales picture for NA beer producers, who are able to leverage e-commerce channels to sell their offerings directly to consumers. NA producers are also making headway into on-premise retailers, with Athletic Brewing recently gaining more than 1,000 placements at Buffalo Wild Wings stores.