Dwayne Wanner admits it's been a difficult few months for Highlander Brew Co. of South River, but the company's president is keeping his head up.
Highlander has laid off retail staff, but has kept people on in the brewery preparing for the summer.
“We are actually being very optimistic and building inventory for the summer,” he says. “It may be a bit of a risk, but we're doing that. If we are continuing to build inventory for the summer, it's like business as usual.”
Wanner says he was not eligible for employee subsidies from the Canadian Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) in March after making a large shipment to the LCBO. But Highlander will qualify for CERB in April.
Sales have been cut in half during social isolation, and Wanner says he and other breweries have lost potential revenue with the cancellation of such events as The Red Beerd Festival, which was slated for late May at the Granite Club in North Bay.
But Wanner says the business has kept going with curbside pickup and online sales, shipping across Ontario, from Kingston to Windsor to Kenora.
Wanner credits his customers for growing Highlander's online sales from an order a month to six to 10 orders a day.
In the 10 years Highlander has been in business, Wanner has seen the number of Ontario craft brewers grow from 25 to more than 250 in 2018, with many more in the works since then. Some, he believes, may not survive the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
See: Six northern Ontario brewers join forces to market great local beers
“Cash flow is the biggest problem,” explains Rick Dalmazzi, executive director of the Canada Craft Brewers Association (CCBA).
“Many of our member breweries are still in their investment growth phase and therefore marginally profitable, if at all,” says Dalmazzi. “Everyone’s doing whatever it takes to weather the storm as best they can.
“Fortunately, we’ve seen very few permanent closures, but that will change if current conditions extend into the summer.”
While many are relying on curbside pickups to maintain minimal sales, the association says it doesn’t come close to the revenue lost from keg, bar, and restaurant sales.
The association says 15 per cent of its 1,100 members across Canada have turned to making hand sanitizer to help fight COVID-19.
Mackenzie Casalino, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
The North Bay Nugget
The Local Journalism Initiative is funded by the Government of Canada