George Croft - Waterloo Brewing Ltd

In this episode of the Canadian Equities podcast George Croft, CEO of Waterloo Brewing joins Robert Cooper as they discuss the craft beer and alcoholic beverage industry in Canada. For the full length version of the Canadian Equities podcast connect with us at acumencapital.com/podcast.

Transcript

Moderator 0:01

Welcome to Canadian Equities, a short biweekly podcast series, where we speak with top business leaders and hear their perspectives on the industries in which they operate for the full length version. Find our link in the podcast notes or connect with us at acumencapital.com I'm your host Robert Cooper today, I'm pleased to have with me, George Croft, president and CEO of Waterloo brewing Waterloo is the second largest regional brewer in Canada and operates a number of brands in the beer cider and ready to drink categories. Waterloo is also a significant contract manufacturer of third-party brands out of their state-of-the-art facility in the kitchener Waterloo region of Ontario. George Croft. Welcome to the program,

George Croft 0:44

Robert, thank you very much for having me

Moderator 0:46

So George I want to start off with you. Every university student loves beer and perhaps your time in Edmonton, on white avenue and the pub scene. Got you interested in it, but most don't make a career of it. So how did you get started in the business and what was the path that led you to that?

George Croft 1:00

Yeah. So I actually did get started in Edmonton as you, uh, outlined. I was lucky enough to be a summer student for about Bernice of Alberta started way back in 1981. And I only have jokingly say to people, perhaps the best job I ever had being a university student and being a campus rep at the same time. Anyway, I was fortunate. I was able to graduate and, uh, I had a wonderful career at Labatt that was there for 21 years. Uh, came up through the sales and marketing side of the business. And, my last two assignments at Labatt was, or where I was the president of the old, especially beer company, which was I looked after all of our international global premium brands, which was a fantastic assignment. And then my last assignment at Labatt was I was president of Labatt, breweries of Ontario. Uh, from there, I moved on to lake port. Uh, when I arrived at was a private company, we took it public as an income trust, effectively sold the company and I guess 10 days, and then almost two years to the day we were bought by Labatt. And, uh, so I left, I left the company, and I've been at a water brewery, since may of 2008 as the person, the CEO. And it's been a fantastic,

Moderator 2:16

Waterloo has been around since craft beer first got started. So tell us a little bit about Waterloo brewing.

George Croft 2:21

Yeah. Should we started in 1984? Started by a gentleman by the name of Jim Brickman and certainly, credited as the first craft bur Terrio and arguably the first crop for, in Canada. I was able to join the company in, again, may of 2008. Certainly, coming in, I knew it was a business that was needing some repairs. We had three operating facilities at time and certainly didn't need to have three operating facilities we've said to invested, about $85 million of operating capital to get to a single source facility. And, we make a variety of beverages, as you outlined, uh, beer cider, ready to drink, with our owner portfolio. But importantly, we've been able to, build out our global, cold manufacturing business in a very significant way.

Moderator 3:13

Beer in general is going through a lot of disruption. Consumer preferences are changing and new categories are coming to the fore. What are some of the dominant themes you see impacting your business and the industry in general over the next few years?

George Croft 3:29

Well, I think an underlying theme, in beverage alcohol, and you could argue certainly within food is just, just a recognition of people are looking for better, healthier choices. And so as we continue to innovate, not only with our beer portfolio, but with our ready to drink portfolio, we are always looking for opportunities to have a more robust offering Probably the best example within our beer portfolio is. No, we're the leading producer, domestic producer Rattlers in, right. And the, single most significant point of difference that we have relative to everybody else's we use real fruit juice. It certainly comes at a cost, but we think that, consumers can taste the difference and people are looking for healthier choices. So, you know, it certainly has worked for us. And I say just the emergence of adjacent categories, certainly the self-serve business, from virtually nothing, you know, is now a significant, meaningful, category. We have an owner brand that we participate in that category, but I think you need to be aware of trends. Cause the consumer continues to move. I would say innovation is more important today than it's ever been. And we just need to be mindful that we stay on top of what's coming.

Moderator 4:40

George Croft, Waterloo brewing. Thank you for spending time with us today,

George Croft 4:45

Robert. My pleasure. Thank you very much.

Moderator 4:49

Note that this podcast is not making an investment recommendation on any companies discussed. We welcome your comments on today's episode or any other episode. Connect with us at Acumen Capital dot com.