Behemoth founder and co-CEO Andrew Childs with co-CEO Hannah Miller Childs. Photo / Supplied
Behemoth founder and co-CEO Andrew Childs with co-CEO Hannah Miller Childs. Photo / Supplied
Auckland beer business Behemoth Brewing has signed brewing and distribution deals to supply its craft beer to supermarkets in Australia and venues in the United States.
Behemoth Brewing, which last year turned over $11 million in sales revenue, will soon be sold in Coles supermarkets throughout Australia and has signeda reciprocal brew under license partnership with Californian-based Ballast Point Brewing Company.
The new agreements will see Behemoth supply close to 72,000 litres of beer for Coles, and 80,000 litres for Ballast Point Brewing for the California market. Behemoth will also continue to brew Ballast Point under license for the New Zealand market.
Behemoth has kicked off a capital raise with Snowball, seeking $3m to expand its operation further. In 2020 it raised $1.8m within 20 minutes, which was used to expand its brewing capacity and open its Dominion Road hospitality venue Churly's.
Behemoth brews approximately 1.44 million litres of beer annually.
The business grew its revenue by 127 per cent between 2021 and 2022 through the height of the Covid-19 pandemic and forecasts it will hit $13.25m in sales revenue in the current financial year.
Husband and wife duo Andrew Childs and Hannah Miller Childs, both co-chief executives, founded Behemoth Brewing in 2013 after falling in love with home brewing. In the last two years the pair have grown the company from eight employees to 50 and have opened two Auckland brew pubs under the name Churly's. Behemoth has released over 500 beers and produced more than 4 million litres of beer since its inception.
Andrew Childs, who left behind a career as a lawyer to pursue Behemoth, said expanding into Australia was exciting, and that market had the potential to become as big as the New Zealand market is for the firm over the next few years.
"We parted ways with our distributor when Covid hit so we're looking forward to being back over in Australia - we get asked multiple times a week for our beer in Australia so it will be good to answer those calls for our fans," Childs told the Herald.
Pre-pandemic Behemoth exported to 12 markets and now sends its beer to seven markets, including Thailand, Singapore, Hong Kong and Germany, despite this, export was a small part of the business. That would now change with the supply deals in Australia and the United States, he said.
Ballast Point Brewing Company and Behemoth swap recipes to brew each others' beer in the local markets. Behemoth also brews beers for Vietnamese craft brewer Heart of Darkness for the New Zealand market.
Childs said his business was on the cusp of becoming a large-scale organisation with significant growth in the pipeline. He anticipates Behemoth would have 80-100 employees within the next two years.
"We've got so much coming on in the next 12-18 months. Next month we are going to start increasing the number of supermarkets we supply to by 30-40 per cent, so that too will mean huge growth for us," he said.
"We've just got a new senior management team and new board of directors that have been working really well together, and we're now at that point where we know things are just about to take off even more than they have done recently.
"Revenue growth and profit growth are looking good for the next few years."
Behemoth recently won Champion Medium Brewery of New Zealand at the NZ Brewers Guild Awards and four years ago made the Deloitte Top 200 Fast 50 list.
