Craft beer brewery appoints administrators

08 December 2022 Consultancy.uk

Somerset brewery Wild Beer Co has fallen into administration, with inflation having made production costs untenable. Professionals from Undebt.co.uk have been installed as joint administrators.

Launched in 2012 by publican Andrew Cooper and former Californian chef Brett Ellis, Wild Beer Co initially grew out of a dairy kitchen in Westcombe, producing 2,400 litres of beer a week. Recently, the brand had grown to boast a 600-strong ‘barrel library’, while its wild and sour beers were frequently stocked by supermarkets, and had been exported to over 22 countries.

Despite this success, rumours had been circling that the company was under financial pressure for some time. Before the pandemic, it was forced to shut a second taproom location in Cheltenham, after less than four years of operation. According to reports in Gloucestershire Live at the time, that closure resulted from high rents and business rates – along with an expensive pavement licence, and a boom in the food and drink trade in Cheltenham ramping up competition.

Craft beer brewery appoints administrators

Now, after another difficult three years, Wild Beer Co has collapsed into administration – with reports from Bristol Live suggesting this was the consequence of further struggles relating to inflation, and rising production costs. The Times also suggested that the company had struggled to cope with rising production costs.

Looking ahead, Sam Talby and Rob Coad of Undebt.co.uk have been appointed as joint administrators of Wild Beer Co, and are managing the affairs, business and property of the Company. Acting as agents of the company without personal liability, the pair will now look to find buyers for the firm’s assets. To that end, a spokesperson for Undebt said they were “hopeful of interest in acquiring the business given Wild Beer’s strong brand".

Undebt is a new boutique insolvency firm, established at the start of 2022. The firm’s website is still under construction, but has already taken on a number of engagements. According to a LinkedIn post from Talby, this included “a health based business, which “together with the team at Undebt,” the administrators were able “through an accelerated M&A process” to sell – something he asserts preserved “some thirty jobs and its underlying business.”