Five ways to boost efficiency at your craft brewery

1. Formalize and standardize brewing processes

A lack of standard processes is one of the biggest ways breweries lose out on efficiency. By implementing standard operating procedures for brewing, fermentation, packaging, and cleaning, you’ll be able to ensure consistency and quality while saving time and resources along the way.

2. Waste reduction and sustainability

Reducing waste means saving costs and staying competitive. Using existing data, assess where waste occurs; is it in your systems and processes, are your teams working in silos and making more work for one another, or maybe your transportation systems are causing delays.

A waste reduction program can look at streamlining operations, recycling and reusing by-products of brewing, or implementing energy-efficient equipment and practices, among many other options.

3. Technology integration

Using technology to benefit your business will look different for each brewery. Whether it’s the latest software to monitor and control the brewing process, or a system that manages brewing and staff schedules to reduce waste, there are many options available.

Funding opportunities for technological transformation, like the Canada Digital Adoption Program, may also be an option depending on your goals and the scope of your project.

4. Department alignment and collaboration

Fostering a culture of communication and teamwork within your business – between brew masters, sales, marketing, finance, and others – will enable a stronger understanding throughout the company and increase efficiency.

For example, the finance department will require a lot of data from the brew masters to ensure they’re making accurate calculations and financial choices, and the brew masters should also be involved in the costing and margining of different products to see how that might impact and influence their work.

5. Lean methodology and principles

Applying lean principles will prevent overproduction that leaves you with excess inventory eating into profit and efficiencies. Taking a look at how your staff are doing their jobs – are there ways to cut down on the amount of time it takes them to complete a task by making small adjustments to their workspace, for example?

Implementing efficiency-boosting strategies shouldn’t be done in a silo. You and all of your staff know how the business works and bringing everyone together to collaborate and better understand areas of improvement will be key to making an actionable plan for the future.

Whether your goal is to bring more technology into your craft brewery, or reduce the bottlenecks in your production process, MNP’s team of experienced advisors can help you build a strategy to get your business at its best and most efficient.

To learn more about the work MNP’s Craft Breweries team does, visit our page.

If you’re attending the Ontario Craft Brewery conference this month, let us know and please join us on October 25 at 10:30 a.m. in Ballroom A as we discuss how understanding your finances is key to planning for long-term success.