🍺 Elite Engagement · Craft Brewery
$180,000 Recovered in 90 Days — Without a Single New Customer
A regional craft brewery had grown steadily to $4.2M in revenue over six years. Taproom traffic was consistent, their flagship IPA had strong regional distribution, and the owner was well-known in the local beer community. But every month ended with less cash than the month before. Revenue was up 11% year-over-year — and yet they couldn’t breathe.
Before investing in a sales push, they brought us in for a full Elite engagement across all five layers of the Shelf-to-Savings™ framework.
What We Found
| Layer | Finding | Impact |
|---|---|---|
| L1 — COGS | Grain supplier: 3-year relationship, volume tier pricing never applied retroactively | +$42K/yr |
| L1 — COGS | Co-packer contract had downtime charges built in — rescheduled to eliminate idle billing | +$18K/yr |
| L2 — Overhead | Equipment depreciation fully allocated to flagship seasonal SKU — suppressed margin by 15 points | Fixed |
| L3 — Working Capital | AP: 14-day terms. AR: 55-day collections. Cash conversion cycle restructured from 61 → 32 days | $47K freed |
| L4 — Pricing | Taproom pricing unchanged for 22 months while grain costs rose 11% | +$31K/yr |
| L5 — Growth Tax | $8,400/yr in unused software + cold storage contract at prior volume | +$22K/yr |
The Situation
Revenue Was Up. Cash Was Gone.
The owner's natural conclusion was that they needed more sales. What the Elite engagement revealed was that the brewery's most profitable product line appeared to have a 23% gross margin on paper — the actual contribution margin was 38%. They had been systematically under-investing in marketing their best SKU because the internal numbers were wrong.
The working capital analysis alone revealed that the brewery was paying its hop supplier in 14 days while waiting 55 days to collect from distributors. That mismatch — not a lack of sales — was the engine behind their perpetual cash crunch.
With their cash conversion cycle cut nearly in half, the owner eliminated a $60,000 line of credit draw they had been relying on monthly — freeing up $4,800/year in interest and restoring full credit availability.
"Scotty found $180,000 sitting in our own P&L that we'd been walking past every single month. I wish we'd done this three years ago."
— Brewery Owner, $4.2M Revenue
Revenue growth cannot fix a cost structure problem. When a brand's financial reporting misallocates overhead into product costs, every strategic decision — pricing, marketing spend, SKU prioritization — is made on false data. The numbers have to be right before the strategy can be right.