Other than our production data, probably the most frequent data request I receive relates to financial benchmarks. Measures such as revenue per barrel or cost of goods sold are fundamental to understanding how your business is performing, and so placing them in the context of broad industry benchmarks can help you analyze your performance and potential areas of growth and improvement.
To that end, we conduct a financial benchmarking survey every two years designed to gather data from a wide range of breweries and create aggregated benchmarks by size and business model. You can find our 2018 data here. Unfortunately, those surveys don’t always capture the same response rate as some of our production surveys.
To that end, this year we’ve teamed up with accounting and financial services firm Plante Moran to expand the reach of the survey, get more participation from more geographically diverse breweries, and help provide stronger financial benchmarks to Brewers Association (BA) members. Participating in this year’s craft brewery survey not only provides you with an advance copy of the financial benchmarking report, but also a personalized overview of how your 2020 and 2019 financials and COVID-19 response compared to your industry peers. Since the survey is long, the 2019 data is optional, but given the turbulence of 2020, we believe it may provide more stable benchmarks for many businesses.
You can go directly to the survey itself on the Plante Moran website. As always, individual brewery results are confidential, and only aggregated benchmarks will be presented.