Contents
Rapid growth has not been good for the hip beer brand. The company is over-indebted and is looking for a rescuer.
Author: Benita Vogel, Rachel Winkelmann, Hannah Wey
It has long been an issue in the beer industry: the tight financial situation of the hip Chopfab-Boxer brewery. Now she is also publicly known. The company is over-indebted and is desperately looking for solutions.
Founded in Winterthur in 2012, the company has grown quickly. It quickly made it into the taps of hundreds of restaurants and onto the shelves of retailer Coop. So fast that the competition rubbed their eyes. That happened too quickly, experts say.
Who should pay for that?
“We in the industry have all asked ourselves how it works, that you can practically grow from zero to 100 and be able to serve Coop immediately. A lot of listing fees were probably paid,” says Alois Gmür, former president of the Association of Free Swiss Breweries and head of the Rosengarten brewery in Einsiedeln. Other brewers also wondered how long this would last and, above all, who would pay for it all, as several confirmed.
We were forced to grow so quickly that we never had a chance to pay off the debt.
Barely established, Chopfab took over the Boxer brewery in French-speaking Switzerland five years after its launch. The company founders, both of whom once worked in marketing, shook up the market, which in Switzerland is dominated by Feldschlösschen and Heineken (see graphic).
The debts kept getting bigger
Today the company with 90 employees is in need of restructuring. Philipp Bucher, founder and managing director of Chopfab-Boxer, is surprised at the rapid growth, which came from nothing and was not planned that way.
The market simply welcomed Chopfab with open arms. “We couldn’t and didn’t want to defend ourselves against this success. On the contrary, we went along with it and fully pursued this growth strategy.”
We in the industry have all asked ourselves how it is possible to grow from practically zero to 100.
He sees his company as a victim of its own success. New brewing and tank systems were needed for the suddenly large number of sales channels. And they are very expensive. “We were forced to grow so quickly that we never had a chance to repay the debt. And so they got bigger and bigger.”
Rising costs are a burden
High energy and raw material prices also put a strain on the brewery’s costs, says Bucher. The entire industry is affected by this, according to the Swiss Brewery Association. The stagnating market – beer sales in Switzerland fell last year – is also not easy for the industry, according to the industry association.
At Chopfab there is also over-indebtedness. That’s why shareholders and banks have already agreed to forego money, as managing director Bucher says. We are now in negotiations with suppliers so that they can also waive their demands. This should be completed in two to three weeks.
The investments required to finally overcome the past and the need for fresh capital are quite high.
Once the debt has been reduced, the Locher brewery should inject fresh capital and also invest in the future. “The Locher brewery is involved in the renovation, but it’s a lot of hard work,” says Locher managing director Aurèle Meyer.
Locher and other investors have a clear idea of what needs to happen in order for investments to be made. “It only makes sense if the company can be put on a healthy foundation right from the start,” says Locher. The investments necessary to deal with the past and the need for fresh capital are quite high. Because this time the growth should be sustainable.