In this roundtable discussion, a panel including craft brewery veterans, restaurant chain national buyers, and a BeerBoard data authority discuss the current world of on-premise national accounts. Panelists consider questions such as:

• What are national on-premise buyers looking for? How are they making decisions? How far out are they planning?
• What tools does a brewery need access to if they’d like to play in this world?
• How do corporate and franchise relationships affect a regional brewery’s access to buyers?

These and other questions have made this segment a bit of a “big bad wolf” to local and regional breweries across the country. This open and honest discussion seeks to demystify the process and help brewery salespeople and owners understand what’s needed to navigate this channel.

Learning Objectives

• Understand the chain restaurant buyer’s mindset and what’s important to them
• Discuss roadblocks breweries can expect to run into and suggestions on how to move past them
• Gain tools needed to work within the chain restaurant landscape
• Break down data from BeerBoard to understand where trends are heading and how that affects buyers’ decisions