Key to success for independent Canadian breweries lies in ‘economies of scope’
TORONTO — Canada’s remaining independent breweries know they can’t compete with the economies of scale and marketing capabilities of global conglomerates, so they’re concentrating on winning customers over by catering to craft beer lovers’ unquenchable thirst for new and innovative styles.
That’s what Calgary-based Big Rock Brewery’s newly appointed CEO Wayne Arsenault is banking on as the company celebrates the one-year anniversary of its brewing facility in Ontario, home to 40 per cent of the country’s brewery industry.
The 27-year-old company, he says, is taking a grassroots approach of “finding and introducing customers to Big Rock one taste palette at a time” as it expands into different markets across the country.
“We really have to compete on the authenticity of what we do. It’s really a case of David and Goliath and I think people like that challenge,” says Arsenault, who has previously held executive and management roles at Moosehead Breweries and Molson Coors.