The UK's first entirely gluten-free brewery has launched a crowd-funding campaign offering members of the public the chance to invest in the business.
Using equity platform Crowdcube, the Bellfield Brewery had already attracted more than 47 per cent of its target capital of £150,000 through private contributions made by invitation only. Between Tuesday last week, when the offer went public, and Friday the amount raised climbed up to £85,260 or 56 per cent of the target.
Investors are being offered a combination of an equity stake alongside a number of rewards such as exclusive bottlings or the chance to brew their own beer at the brewery, which will be set up in Edinburgh.
The money raised will be used to rent premises and fit them out with brewing equipment. Four sites in Duddingston and Portobello are currently under consideration.
Working in partnership with independent brewing experts, the Bellfield Brewery is developing a range of beers and lagers that are naturally gluten free, with its first products expected to be on sale by autumn 2015.
The range will include a premium India Pale Ale, the flavour and style of which is difficult to perfect using entirely gluten free ingredients.
Marie Brown, Operations Manager at the Bellfield Brewery, believes that the market opportunity for gluten-free beer is significant as the UK is currently largely dependent on imports, particularly from the Czech Republic and Belgium which produce blonde ales and pilsners.
Brown stresses that much beer sold as gluten free is not as free of gluten as consumers might think: some manufacturers simply de-glutenise their beers rather than making them from gluten-free ingredients.
Brown believes the company can achieve a market valuation of between £5.8m and £10.9m by 2018, when it hopes to achieve revenues of £2.76m and expects to employ nine people.
"We are already in discussion with a number of potential distributors, and we expect to be supplying independent specialists, multiple retailers and the on-trade by October 2015," she said.
In 2014, total UK beer sales reached £16.9 billion while sales of premium, bottled ale have increased by 20% since 2010. Sales of craft ale in the UK are estimated at £438m a year and the sector is growing.
The Bellfield Brewery is based in Edinburgh and was founded by a group of friends who either have coeliac disease themselves or have loved ones who are coeliacs.
Coelic disease is a lifelong autoimmune disease which makes their people intolerant to gluten. The Bellfield Brewery will apply for Coeliac UK's gluten-free accreditation for its entire range, so that all products carry the internationally recognised 'crossed grain' symbol.
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