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Boston Beer Company

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Boston Beer Company
Case Study Boston Beer Co. is a craft brewery with primary location in Boston, Massachusetts, which sold about 3.8 million barrels of its products in 2017. Their production consists of over sixty beers under the Samuel Adams brand, over ten flavored malt beverages under Twisted Tea brand and five hard sparkling waters under the Truly Spiked & Sparkling brand name. Majority of the beers produced by the company is positioned in the Better Beer category which includes craft brewers, domestic specialty beers and most imports. While the overall consumption of beer declined in the past decade, the consumption of high quality beers slightly increased, but this increasing trend is accompanied by large increase in the number of …show more content…
The Boston Beer Co. uses Malt and Hop grown not only in the USA and Canada, but also in some specific regions in Europe and Southern Hemisphere. Hop as an ingredient influences the aroma and taste of the final product, but because the quality (concentration of hop resins, Essential oils, and Hop polyphenols) of hop is given not only by the variety planted, but mainly by the climate and soil condition in specific regions (which are impossible to replicate), there is only limited supply worldwide of certain type of hop. The supply can also vary based on growing conditions in specific year. The Boston Beer Co. uses both commercial and proprietary strands of yeast. To prevent damage to the different strand of yeast and to ensure continues supply, the yeasts are stored in multiple location. Purchase commitment are in place with hop dealers to ensure adequate supply of hop based on company predictions. Multiple storage locations hold one to two years of hop supply to reduce the risk of supply reduction. Multiple location reduces the risk of loss to all supply in case the location is destroyed. (Annual Income Statement). Boston Beer Company already has a system in place to protect and ensure adequate supply of the resources needed to produce quality …show more content…
It is also recommended to look and evaluate the financial ratios trends (change of the ratios over time). In table 1 are the financial ratios for Boston Beer Co. first quarter compared to the industry and sector the company belongs too. The industry contains all company producing alcoholic beverages, the sector on the other hand includes next the alcoholic beverages also nonalcoholic beverages industry, agricultural production, food processing, tobacco industry, but also office supplies and personal and household products Industry. Because the sector includes such a huge variety of industries, I believe that better picture of company financial health can be formed by comparing it only to the industry they are operating in. The figures in the table were calculated after the first quarter of 2018 and MRQ stands for Most Recent Quarter, while TTM for Trailing Twelve Months (in this case the ratio is calculated from figures for the Q1 2018, and Q2, Q3, Q4 2017). Boston Beer Co. results are mostly similar to the results of the industry. The difference I would like to point out is the lower Price to Sale ratio (stock price per share/net revenue per share) and Revenue per Employee. The revenue per employer is only about 2/3 of the industry and price to sales ratio is less than a half of the industry. The

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