Craft beer maker FourPure to create 20 new London jobs with £2.5m brewery investment in Bermondsey
Craft brewer FourPure has put £2.5m into expanding its Bermondsey brewery, increasing capacity by 400 per cent.
The project will create 20 new jobs and allow the brand, which is stocked in the likes of M&S, Tesco, Asda and Ocado to keep up with demand.
Co-founder Daniel Lowe said the company was now talking to other major retailers, including one big four supermarket, with a view to scoring even wider distribution.
“What we want to do is to continue to grow and to give ourselves a bit of head room so we can do these innovative beers.”
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Output will increase to over 14m pints a year due to the addition of high-tech brewing equipment. FourPure will also continue to develop new brews, and will add the Easy Peeler Citrus Session IPA to its core range when the brewery reopens next Thursday.
Financing for the project came from a mix of Barclays bank debt and asset finance from Close Brothers.
Lowe said he had no plans to exit the business just yet, but that FourPure would consider all options in future if the brewery needed to expand. He added that the craft beer community can get “too easily whipped up” about small brewers selling ot big companies such as AB InBev’s takeover of Camden Town Brewery and Carlsberg’s acquisition of London Fields Brewery.
“I don’t see they’ve had any downside from a consumer perspective, he told City A.M. “I don’t think consumers actually care. Maybe in the craft beer community do but most people see a pint of Camden Hells and don’t think: they’ve got different owners I don’t want that.”
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