ABV Technology, the company best known for its nonalcoholic beer, has moved into a 10,000 square foot office and manufacturing space in St. Paul, almost four times bigger than the company's previous location.
ABV’s machines create nonalcoholic versions of beer and then use the extracted alcohol to make hard seltzers. With taprooms reopening and craft-brewery sales are once again rising, and ABV is making moves to place more of their machines across North America and possibly overseas, according to the StarTribune.
Even with the pandemic, and most of their customers not doing well, ABV continued its expansion plan.
Throughout 2020 there were 8,884 craft brewers, which collectively brewed more than 22 million barrels of beer, according to the Brewers Association. The U.S. craft beer market was pegged at $22.2 billion, accounting for approximately 24% of the entire U.S. beer market.
U.S. beer volume sales dropped 3% in 2020, but craft brewers lost triple that at more than 9%, according to the Brewers Association. Frimat said to the StarTribune that the dip in sales shaved about a year and a half off ABV’s growth curve.
To adjust for the drop in business, the company raised $1.3 million from private investors.
ABV started making its machines in 2018, according to Patrick Frimat, one of three co-founders of the company. Now they have partnerships with breweries across the continent in Canada, North Dakota, South Dakota, Colorado, California, and Nevada. The company is also working on potential partnerships in Texas and North Carolina.
The price of one of ABV’s machines is north of $250,000; because of this, they do not sell the machines to small businesses. Instead, ABV has used a shared revenue partnership where a brewer would pay to have a machine installed and then charge to let other brewers in the region use it.
During the pandemic, the company also worked with cideries to make nonalcoholic cider and is now exploring nonalcoholic wine and whiskey. ABV is preparing for the Craft Brewers Conference in Colorado this September. Firmat anticipates that the trade show will generate buzz for the companies machines.