Friday’s ad is another one from the United States Brewers Foundation, from 1951. This a series of ads they did in 1951 using a Q&A format aimed at highlighting different positive aspects of beer and the brewing industry.
Q
Are most American breweries “large” or “small” businesses?
A
Small, individually — although the Brewing Industry as a whole ranks 13th in America.
Interestingly, the way the defined “small breweries” was not barrels brewed or the amount sold, but by the number of employees. They defined a small brewery as one with less than 500 workers, saying the average was less than 200. Using that metric, 409 of the 440-then active breweries they defined as being small. I wonder how that would work out today? I suspect only 2 of the more than 3,000 breweries open today have anything close to 500 employees.
Hi Jay,
If you count sales force and restaurant/tasting room staff, I’ll bet a lot of breweries employ 500+
Probably not many have more than 500 brewers on staff though.
Cheers,
Peter
The Small Business Administration (SBA) didn’t exist until the 60’s, early-on it set standards for defining “small” business. For manufacturing industries, the standards were based on #’s of employees (on the company payroll); for service companies, the standards were based on average gross revenue over a 3-yr period. “SIC” (Standard Industrial Classification) codes were industry & service specific.
I was a Small Business Specialist for 11 of my 25 yrs working for the Navy, so I know what the standards were in the 80’s & 90’s – my “bible” for determining size was the SIC Code manual. Rare cases excepted, what determined “small” for mfg, was < 500 employees on the company payroll (including company-owned distributorships, subcontractors, etc.). For mega-industries dominated by 2-5 cos, "small" was <1000-1500 employees.
Bottom line is that most beer reps work for distributors, not the breweries, so even Sam Adams would, despite its gross revenue, might still be classified as a "small" business, even tho its founder's worth a billion (assuming its production facilities don't employ 500 +). Sierra Nevada, even w/its expansion into NC, is odds-on still to be 500 (Sam Adams may be the only one, given all the recent international mergers/buyouts).