Beer brand Wild Beer Co has fallen into administration after struggling to recover from the pressures of Covid, while battling rising costs.
The company, which raised almost £1.8m on Crowdcube in 2017, hired Undebt as administrators on 2 December.
The administrator is hopeful of finding a buyer for the business as a going concern, but the brewer has ceased trading in the meantime.
A company statement said: “It has been a wild 10 years and we are heartbroken to be in this position. We could see the potential for Wild Beer and we had ambitions to increase sales and brand exposure.”
It said the business had been hit by a number of “adverse trading conditions” including Covid, the loss of export sales, soaring production costs, damaging inflation and an increase in interest rates.
Its 2017 crowdfunding campaign, which valued the business at £25m and was back by almost 2,000 investors, was designed to fund the building of a new brewery to rapidly expand production capacity.
The new brewery was to have the capacity to brew more than 12 million litres a year, with plans to include a taproom, restaurant, private dining and corporate hosting facilities and gardens growing fruit and veg for the beers and kitchen.
However, local media said the brewery was never built despite planning permission being secured – instead the funds were used to purchase a closed brewery in Somerset and brewing equipment.
Wild Beer was founded in 2013 by beer industry professionals Andrew Cooper and Brett Ellis to brew beers from wild yeasts, with previous listings in M&S, Whole Foods Market, Oddbins and Booths.
The administrators were contacted for comment.
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