Gloombusters: Brewing machine company fizzing to expand

Ian Williams expects WilliamsWarn breweries to be in more than 20 Australian stores and registered to sell in the US by the end of the year. Photo / Natalie Slade

In as little as seven days, you could have 19 litres of award-winning homebrew beer - a successful invention which has allowed homebrew kit company WilliamsWarn to eye up the global market.

In 2006, company co-founder Ian Williams began researching the opportunity to improve the quality of brewing beer at home and speed up the production process to be more in-line with professional breweries. With input from his long-time friend, engineer Anders Warn, Ian created a compact personal brewing machine that dealt with challenges such as temperature control, sediment removal, infection prevention, brewing under pressure to achieve carbonation and flow control.

So began WilliamsWarn.

At a time when beer sales are in decline, the innovative Kiwi company is occupying a new category in homebrew, and is aiming to be well established in the Australian market by the end of the year.

With a beer market valued at $12.2 billion including a $91 million homebrew sector, Australia was critical to the growth aspirations of WilliamsWarn, Williams said.

"Establishing distribution there takes longer than you want, however the prize will be worth it. With 21 million people and a higher GDP per capita than New Zealand, it's a very important market for us to crack."

Williams said the company was focused on sales growth, having already achieved $3.1 million in sales of the breweries and a further $1 million in ingredients and accessories from New Zealand.

"Sydney and Melbourne each have the same population [as] New Zealand. That's a lot of beer drinkers," Williams said. "Distribution discussions are under way and our goal is to establish our channels this year, then work on awareness."

The brewing machines are sold through Harvey Norman in New Zealand and online. The company is planning non-exclusive retail distribution in Australia, initially through Harvey Norman in Sydney and Perth.

By the end of this year, the Kiwi company expects to be in more than 20 Australian stores and have appliance registration in the $152 billion US beer market so it can begin selling to its 600-strong US waiting list.

Once distribution platforms and sales growth are in place in Australia and the US, WilliamsWarn plans to look to Europe, Brazil, Scandinavia and the UK. The global beer market is worth $762 billion and beer counts for 3 per cent of all liquid consumed, according to WilliamsWarn.

Gloombusters

A Herald series looking at the sectors and businesses defying tougher times affecting others.

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Coming up: How manufacturers have beaten the odds.