INNIS & Gunn has said it delivered a “robust” performance across both brand and business during its “most challenging” year to date.
The Edinburgh-based brewer said it had “navigated the pandemic and its associated challenges well” with a key strategy to focus on growing core products in core markets, as it filed financial results for the year ending December 2020.
The brewing side of the Innis & Gunn business accounted for 97 per cent of the group’s £21.3 million turnover, maintaining a gross profit for the year of £6.8m, down 24% on the previous year, despite the closure of the on-trade sector for much of 2020.
It said the sector shutdown had a significant impact on its retail business, which accounted for the group loss of £840,000 in the year, rising from £402,000 the previous year.
While there was a reduction in group turnover of 12%, it delivered a like-for-like growth of 21%, excluding the on-trade, which would have seen Innis & Gunn’s 17th year of consecutive growth, the firm said.
It said strong growth was achieved with Innis & Gunn’s core products across the business throughout the year, with the UK off-trade up 28% year on year and in Scotland, Innis & Gunn became the number two Scottish beer brand, up two places, behind Tennent’s.
It also said its owned e-commerce accelerated, with the Innis & Gunn online shop growing 1,286% year on year. In the key export market of Canada, there was a swing of 19% from 2019, with Innis & Gunn holding position as Canada’s number one import ale.
Innis & Gunn’s flagship beer, The Original, grew by 7.4%, a positive swing of 26.2%, driven by growth in the UK and internationally.
READ MORE: Scottish craft brewer ‘back with a bang’
Innis & Gunn’s Lager Beer grew 5.3% overall, a particularly strong performance as historically a significant portion of volume has been delivered through the UK on-trade.
The premium Lager "continues to be Scotland’s number one craft lager brand and the largest and most valuable craft beer, contributing 84% of all craft lager volume and 83% of all craft lager value growth in the Scottish off-trade", Innis & Gunn said.
It also hailed significant new listings secured for the Lager Beer, which will now be available across almost 500 Tesco stores throughout England.
Earlier this year C&C Group, owner of Tennent’s Lager, took a minority stake in Innis & Gunn, when the craft brewer said the “new manufacturing agreement leaves all options on the table to allow us to build our Edinburgh Brewery when the time is right and when there is less uncertainty in the market caused by the current Covid-19 pandemic”.
Innis & Gunn said its new listings, coupled with the new on-trade distribution partnership with C&C Group, will play a key part in its plans to expand into England.
Innis & Gunn also brought three limited-edition beers to market in 2021, Irish Whiskey Cask, Islay Whisky Cask with Laphroaig and Vintage. Irish Whiskey Cask has since been made a permanent fixture, while Vintage was launched in early September, with just 1,000 bottles of the six-year matured beer created.
Dougal Gunn Sharp, founder and master brewer said: “It is fair to say that Innis & Gunn has had a strong 2020, despite it being the most challenging year in this businesses’ history and we have weathered the Covid-19 storm. We ensured our people stayed safe and were supported throughout and we continued our commitment to our charity partner, Meals & More, aiming to end children’s holiday hunger.
"We also used time in 2020 to focus on the future of Innis & Gunn, with the growth plans implemented already seeing significant success across the business.
“The closure of the on-trade impacted what would have been our 17th year of consecutive growth, but that aside, we have seen huge success in the off-trade and through our own e-commerce channel and we are in a strong position.
“To achieve such significant new listings for our Lager throughout England with Tesco, is phenomenal and testament to the quality of beer that we produce and the brand that we have built.
"I look forward to continuing the momentum we are creating and bringing Scotland’s best lager to more drinkers around the UK.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel