Jump Ship Brewing, Scotland’s only woman owned non-alcoholic brewing company, was given a shot in the arm this month after smashing an ambitious crowdfunding target in just 48 hours, solidifying plans for a summer opening of a new purpose-built 20 hectolitre brewery in Midlothian.
They will also be welcoming Lucinda Bruce-Gardyne, Chair of Scotland Food and Drink, to its advisory board bringing over 20 years’ experience in the industry as a chef, teacher, entrepreneur and board director.
Sonja Mitchell, Managing Director, said, “Within two days of our Seedrs campaign launching publicly we hit our target of £280,000 and I have watched in awe as this figure continued to grow. We’re currently sitting at £329,000 from over 266 investors. This is fantastic news and we’re thrilled to be able to announce the plans for our new brewery, the first exclusively non-alcoholic brewery in Scotland. There’s a huge and growing demand for drinks in the no and low category and we’ve always focused on the quality and flavour of our range of beers. This funding is testament to that and will allow us to increase our volumes and reach wider markets.
“This capital will be used to bring our production totally in-house allowing us to stabilise prices, optimise our use of renewable energy with access to a state of the art biomass generator and solar power, and most importantly will allow us to reach more people with our fantastic range of beers.
“That Lucinda Bruce-Gardyne has joined our advisory board at such an exciting time for Jump Ship Brewing is hugely exciting and we hugely welcome her strategic direction, expertise and energy.”
Talking about the appointment, Lucinda Bruce-Gardyne, said, “It’s an exciting time in the low and no alcohol category as we continue to see the rise in the sober curious. I’m looking forward to working with Sonja and her team as part of this hugely innovative and flavour-focused business as they start this journey towards expansion.”
The new brewery will allow Jump Ship Brewing to produce up to 800,000 litres of exclusively non alcoholic beer a year and it will create an additional three full time equivalent jobs this year.