Wasted Degrees Scottish Brewery Expansion
Wasted Degrees, the Blair Atholl based brewery owned by brothers, Jack and Connall Low, entered 2024 having experienced a 75% growth in the preceding 12 months. As they prepare to move into the next stage of their expansion plan, they talk about the importance of local connections, how going green super-charged sales, and what the next five years could look like.
Expansion into Europe may not have been at the forefront of Conall Low’s mind when, in 2016, he left his recently acquired degree and career in teaching behind to launch Wasted Degrees Brewing with fellow craft beer enthusiast, John Thompson, however, a lot of beer has flowed since then!
In the eight years since it launched, the company has scaled several times. Most significantly, moving from the brothers’ parents’ garage in 2019 to a fully operational site in Blair Atholl.
Five years after that move, Wasted Degrees is now the largest independent brewery in Perth & Kinross and has transformed from its humble beginnings with a 25-litre homebrew kit, to now being capable of producing 25,000 litres every month. In addition, the Company boasts an enviable balance sheet, virtually devoid of debt, and a 46% compound annual growth rate in its recent trading history.
2021 saw a 125% growth in production output and increasing amounts of beer being shipped across the UK. This allowed the team at Wasted Degrees to grow, and in November 2021 Conall’s brother, Jack Low, acquired John’s share of the business. Jack’s background as the International Business Development Manager for The Scotch Malt Whisky Society brought experience in commercial development to the business.
In March 2022, Conall and Jack successfully secured funding via the Council’s Green Capital Development Grant to enable the purchase of a canning line and labelling machine, both of which are designed and manufactured in the UK by Bolton-based, Microcan.
Although continuously evolving in all areas, Wasted Degrees continues to brew its core range and an ever-changing line-up of small- batch, limited edition beers. Underpinned by a strong sense of social and environmental responsibility, along with its fully electric renewables-powered brewhouse, Wasted Degrees makes a consistent effort to support local agriculture by brewing with Perthshire - grown ingredients whenever possible.
What challenges were you facing as a business that led you to apply for capital funding?
JACK: “Frustratingly, our plans for acquiring capital assets had been delayed due to the various challenges posed by Covid-19, particularly the reduced economic momentum which had led to fewer opportunities to grow our cash reserves.
“Whilst we’d grown significantly since 2017, the brewery was not in a position to fully fund the acquisition of the canning line from its own reserves – a cost of £45,000 plus VAT.
“Our packaging operation and staff base was operating at full capacity, and we had no means of automating the process. 1,200- litre batches of beer would take us four days to bottle and label by hand. This had led to sizeable inefficiencies and, combined with the lockdown closure of pubs and consumers pivoting to e-commerce, it had proven detrimental to the growth of the business."
How has the new canning line improved your environmental footprint?
CONALL: “Cans are infinitely recyclable; according to Stanford University, when it comes to the five most recycled household materials, recycling aluminium is the most energy efficient by a significant margin. And interestingly, recycling glass is the least energy efficient.
“Aluminium cans also create less carbon during their overall lifecycle of production, transport to the brewery, filling, and transport to consumer, simply because they weigh so much less than glass. We can also source them from a manufacturer in the UK, whereas most glass packaging isn’t produced domestically. So, we made the decision to say goodbye to glass, because cans made more business sense and more environmental sense.”
JACK: “Our grandparents always taught us that whatever we chose to do with our lives, we should try to leave things in a better state than when we found it. I think with what we’re doing at Wasted Degrees, we’re proudly living that philosophy and setting an example of business as a force for good.”
How has the investment benefited Wasted Degrees in the first eighteen months?
CONALL: “The acquisition of a canning line has been transformational for Wasted Degrees.
“The grant award – 50% funding – made buying a canning line and labelling machine an immediate option which in turn allowed us to move to the next level of production. Overnight, we improved our packaging efficiency by over 400%. It’s that simple. The fact that we could source such high-quality kit designed and manufactured in the UK just made this even sweeter.
“We were at a point where we were struggling to keep up with demand and the canning line has enabled us to scale in a sustainable, responsible, and carbon-conscious manner. It has turned that four-day job into a four- hour job, instantly delivering operational efficiencies and environmental savings, as well as enhancing our speed to market.”
“In the 18 months since installation, we’ve packed 200,000 cans and increased our production 197%. The carbon savings have also been vast, with over 20 tons of CO2 equivalents estimated to have been saved since bringing the canning onstream, versus if we’d stayed with glass bottles.
“The fact is, we’re now packaging into a format that’s better for the beer, business and planet. What’s more, we’re producing a product that appeals more to the drinker and trade customer too. In our experience, cans lend themselves better to shelf space optimisation and improve the average order value via multi-unit purchases.
“The capability to fulfil large orders efficiently is a confidence boost; the canning line is an enabler for us to better compete, to chase opportunities that had previously been out of reach.”
Where has Wasted Degrees seen the highest growth in this time?
JACK: “There have been two main areas of growth since installing the canning line. The first is in exports. We’ve now supplied to every country in western Europe except for Switzerland.
“Tens of thousands of cans, and ten thousand home draught kegs have made their way to the continent, all proudly shouting about Wasted Degrees in Perthshire. Our brand has been in at least 10,000 homes in Europe, but the really cool thing is that some of these people have nipped in to visit us when they’ve come to Scotland on holiday. I’m sure we’re not the sole reason they’ve chosen to visit the UK, but it’s great to know that we’ve had an impact. The canning line has been an enabler for all of that.
“In 2023 our exports accounted for 8% of our production output. Interestingly, we have made a conscious decision to cap this for the time being as our domestic on-trade sales have gained serious momentum and we don’t currently have the warehousing space to grow both domestic and export channels. Which is why we need a bigger home for the brewery!
“Making the choice between national and international growth wasn’t as tough as you’d think. We’ve worked hard to foster genuine relationships with our local, Perthshire bars and pubs, and so building on this nucleus of local demand has been the most economically sensible avenue to pursue.
“In the past, the challenge in supplying the on-trade was competing against the big breweries. Their deep pockets allow them to invest in cellar infrastructure, which in turn makes it easier for them to gain space on the bar; it’s difficult for the smaller independents to compete.
“We decided in late-2022 to meet this challenge head on. We now provide an infrastructure solution whereby we install full end-to-end, cellar-to-tap, draught beer in local bars. On top of this, we offer provenance, free local delivery in Perthshire, and personal service which adds value in ways that the big corporate breweries simply can’t compete with. Stocking a local brewery gives these pubs a point of difference. It’s a story for customers and an undeniable sales booster.
“We’ve covered Highland Perthshire, and we’re now actively looking to supply pubs in Perth, Perthshire generally, and along the A9 corridor.”
How have you managed the growth so far?
CONALL: “Although the growth seems rapid, it has actually been very organic. We decided to take a salary sacrifice approach in these first few years, to grow the business without investors or borrowing. Although this has meant a slightly slower growth, we have made our peace with it, because it is sustainable, and it means that we’re in charge of our own train set, rather than being beholden to lenders.
“Kirsty Easton and the team at PKC have been real allies for us and a genuine enabler of economic development at Wasted Degrees and in the area generally. I feel as though the Green Capital Development Grant gave us an 18-month head start on things, which in turn, has allowed us to deliver economically sooner, as well as progress our current plans for expansion.
JACK: “We’ve proven we can be trusted with this sort of investment. We’ve grown the business, delivered economically by creating and securing jobs, we can better leverage the local supply chain… the list goes on. We are now in the process of entering into a new malt barley supply relationship with a Perth farm, further amplifying the effect we can have on the local economy and the environment.”
What’s next for Wasted Degrees?
CONALL: “We’re short on space, and that’s hurting our growth. We grew another 75% in 2023 as well as leasing two additional buildings to help us cope with demand. Having grown a further 50% year-to-date in 2024 (September), there’s only so much we can achieve with the square meterage we currently have. We’ve had to think about the longer-term strategy around how we house the business.”
JACK: “We’re taking Wasted Degrees home to Pitlochry, to within a mile of where we started in Mum and Dad’s garage in 2016. We secured land in the town to build a forever home for Wasted Degrees and planning permission came through in June.
“There are no radical changes incoming; it’s still Wasted Degrees, business as usual, only in a much bigger space.
“The 600m2 building will be split into three zones – production, storage and visitor experience. It allows for five times more production and storage, and the hope is it will be open for late 2025.
“As well as this, we’ll extend the taproom proposition into more of a visitor experience with food and drink being served 6 days a week, all year round, to a capacity of around 200 people.
CONALL: “It shouldn’t surprise people to know that we’ve designed the new brewery in such a way that it makes it easy to be a good neighbour. We’re standing behind our principles of environmental consideration and good governance, and can promise negligible impact in air, noise and light pollution, as well as ensuring that the ecology of the site will have a net gain in terms of the natural habitat.
“Once the new brewery is up and running, that’s us. We’re going to plateau the growth of the business when that building reaches its production capacity. We’re not looking to become a big corporate brewery. If it gets too big it becomes something else and that’s just not who we are. This is our town; we grew up in Pitlochry, went to the local school, played in local sports teams and the pipe band. This is home, and we want to contribute to its local economy in a way that we can be proud of.”
Visit Wasted Degrees
The current brewery shop is open all year Monday to Friday, whilst the Wasted Degrees Taproom opens on Saturdays from April to September, serving up pizzas alongside up to 12 draught beers and cider.
