Brewdog. After the sale to Tilray: results and prospects
The US firm Tilray bought Brewdog’s brewery, brand name and 11 pubs on 2nd March. 484 people were sacked on the spot and Unite the Union is on the case.
The first issue Tilray has is that the sackings will mean a significant amount of reputational damage to Brewdog which has already suffered a large amount in the last five years.
Tilray’s CEO Dwight Simon did a video call for investors after the sale. He noted that while the Ellon brewery has capacity to brew 2.4m hectolitres its currently producing a third of that, 800,000 hectolitres.
That means there is plenty of space for the US craft brands that Tilray has hoovered up over the last few years to be brewed in Ellon for the European market.
In phrases that trip off the tongue of pretty much every CEO Simon noted that there was ‘lots of cost to be taken out’ of Brewdog and Tilray would be looking for ‘efficiencies’.
This means primarily job cuts. 733 workers were TUPEd (transfer of undertakings, protection of engagements) to Tilray. That protects their jobs and terms and conditions on day one, but not thereafter. At that point a variety of reasons can be given for job cuts known as ETO (economic, technical, organisational).
Given that Simon said Tilray did not know they had been successful until March 1st they won’t have had time to work out what level of workforce they need at Ellon. Any brewery worker not yet member of Unite would be well advised to join.
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