Hudepohl Brewing Company

EMBA 40 Hudepohl Brewing Company

Hudepohl Brewing Company currently sits in a critical situation. Sales have been declining and your historic market is shrinking. Large competitors are eating up market share with new technologies, strategic placement of breweries, solid distribution and national advertising. You hold a strong brand name and multiple resources within your organization that provide a great opportunity for growth.

The national consolidation of brewers and growing presence of independent distributors over the last 30+ years has proved to be challenging for smaller breweries. This has left the industry with 6 leading companies owning 82% of the market share. Newer technologies in production and packaging and the ability to scale purchasing power from everything from raw materials to advertising have given the competition a major advantage. Many companies are integrating vertically to control costs.

Hudepohl has the unique opportunity to drive new business into new and existing markets by creating a more efficient production and packaging process, expanding distribution, introducing new seasonal products and restructuring advertising.

Maximize Efficiency within Brewery Production & Packaging

At 334,000 barrels your facility is operating at an extremely inefficient level. At a growth rate of your targeted 10%, your total barrel production would be at 376,400. To meet the industry average of 80% capacity we must produce and sell an additional 423,600 barrels. With consolidation a common practice in the brewery marketplace you will need to grow sales (see strategy below) and partner with competitors who may need to outsource their production.

Potential Opportunities:

1. Schoeling Status: Current capacity of 260,000 (actual production unknown)

Proposal: Offer to take over production and reduce their costs

2. Coors Status: Planning a brewery expansion. (capacity of 10-12mm)

Proposal: Offer buffer capacity until new plant is...