This is Bloomberg Business Week from Bloomberg Radio, a Bloomberg News team writing during the pandemic that after long days of zoom calls and homeschooling, people are finding ways to keep their spirits up to him literally with spirits. And we know this has been one of the big stories of the pandemic. We've talked a lot about alcohol and the consumption of it. Yeah, and look, I think that January is a time when we think about ways to reset and dry. January is something that we've certainly seen
a lot of people attempt to do exactly right. It's a time to kind of maybe cleanse the head, the bind all of it. Someone who knows about that is our next guest, Bill Shufelt. He is co founder and CEO of Athletic Brewing. He's maker of craft non alcoholic beers, and he joins us on the phone in San Diego. Um, Bill, so good to have you here with Tim and myself. First of all, Happy New Year. How are you hi, Carolinton? Thanks so much, trying me Happy dry January, doing wild
dry January. So tell us about that, because it's often it follows what is often a busy holiday season where there is lots of beverages of the alcoholic kind. Uh this year maybe a little bit differently because of or it was a little bit different because of COVID. Tell us about dry January and what it means. Yeah, it's exactly that. I mean. Going into the new years such a great time for people to kind of hit pause goal toe and thinking about what they want to achieve
in the year ahead. That could be professionally, it could be with their diet, it could be workouts, it could be sleep, mindfulness, relationships, anything. And there's one pretty consistent variable. If you pull alcohol and some unhealthy eating out of that, it makes it really easy to focus on what your goals are and like really kick start the year in a productive way. And it's a trend that's been increasingly popular,
like exponentially so over the past few years. UM over US adults participated in dry January last year, and anecdotally it feels much higher this year. Bill, I know the company's in sort of growth mode right now. Um do you see a big uptick in sales in January? Typically we do, um YEA. So the average uptick month over month from January to December the past two years has been about thirty UM. I will say this year, our website traffic is up about month month over months even Wow.
So what does that mean in real numbers? UM? Yeah, so in terms of so it's estimated that over fifty million, So over fifty million Americans specifically participate in Drive January. But in the broader population of US adults have point
one drinks or less per week. So there's a big misconception about the like the pool of adults who don't drink on any given week, UM, where non alcoholic beverages has always been thought about these really small penalty box markets like people in recovery, people who are currently not drinking first very specific medical reason, where really it's actually the majority of adults and the majority of the days
of the week where not drinking may make sense. And then at the beginning of the year almost more south where like those markets triple basically UM in terms of the category growth for non alcoholic beer, non alcoholic gear as a whole, including all the big macro brands that have been out forever UM it for so Athletic bring launched in two thousand eighteen, UM non alcoholic beer grew six in two thousand, two thousand nine, and in it
grew over across the country. UM were but like as our company goes, were having a bigger and bigger impact on those numbers. UM the craft segments specifically grew three hundred and nine percent last year in craft non alcoholic beer, and athletic had a sixty one percent share of that market. Tim, you're a non alcoholic I am, and and it's interesting.
I'm not exclusively a non alcoholic beer drinker. But that's the reason why I wanted to get Bill on our show is because the way that my own habits have changed during the pandemic and also with with starting this new job, which requires me to get up so much earlier. So what I've decided to do is actually not drink alcohol during the week. A friend of mine made the recommendation to me, who hosts radio very early in the morning, and he said, that is the key to a good
night's sleep. Um. And I actually drink. I do drink athletic athletic brewing beer. UM. But it's also interesting because I've noticed that the marketing is is not traditional beer marketing, right. This is a company that that seems to embrace the idea of UM. It's sort of like you know, Bill, I think of Patagonia, like the company Patagonia. When I see your marketing, it's very focused on like the outdoors and skiing and mountain biking. UM environment tied to the environment.
What is the message that you're going for, because, as you mentioned, it does seem like non alcoholic beer has has gotten a really bad rap because in the past, bad taste has been associated with it. Yeah, it's so funny, and it's like what the company was born out of. It's exactly the occasion set that you're talking about. I was a huge foodie, craft beer guy. I loved all sorts of social family every like all sorts of normal occasions. But I also had this very serious stage job at
a large hedge fund. I loved waking up at five o'clock, working out, being on point all day. I was starting to run ultra marathons on the weekend and really in that alcohol had a smaller and smaller place, but I still wanted a great beer I could have during the week and wake up at five o'clock. And I quickly realized in cutting back on alcohol, I was sleeping right through the night for the first time in years. I
was on point all day. My workouts were great, and it was like the best life pack I'd ever uncovered. And so like my very normal modern adult lifestyle led us in this direction to discover non lcohol beer. And then when I got there, I found out non alcoholic beer. If you take out the alcohol, which is a diuretic and super dehydrating, non alcoholic beer is actually full of electrolytes,
it's anti inflammatory, it's super low in calories. Our flagship Goldenhil's fifty calories and removed um, so you can kind of have your cake and eat it too and get a great night sleep, not of all the calories in the weekend and stuff. Um. In terms of the brand ethos um, we really want to make non alcoholic beer positive and aspirational for the first time. And we're all about. The thing that made me go from like even considering quitting a very stable financial job was the positive impact
we could have. And that's all positive impact on our customers health, activity, fitness, and ultimately then their communities in the environment. And yeah, we donate two percent of all sales the trail and park cleanups. And it's like in
terms of being all about being healthy, active, outdoors and inclusive. Um, we only get one chance at this environment, and we are making a huge den as a company having it hard coded in our ethos from the start, and we'd really like to see more companies do that, honestly, Like two of sales isn't the biggest number in the world, but it makes a huge den But if you get enough people doing it, that two percent becomes something significant and impactful. Hey, but one thing I want to ask you.
When I said, like, give me some more of the numbers, you said, website traffic up month over month. So are you guys profitable? And I'm trying to just get an idea because the non alcoholic beverage market, um, whether it's beers in spirits and things like that or just water and juices, I mean, it's massive. We have so many choices nowadays. So I'm just trying to get an idea of the financials for you. I'm thinking about our audience who are like certainly into this and they're looking for
alternatives and disruptions, certainly in the beverage market. So give me an idea. Are you profitable? What kind of sales are you seeing? And where are you selling? Yeah, Um,
so we are nationwise on our website. Um, we're pretty much the only true e commerce care platform there is because not alcoholic beer, we can ship direct the customer nationwide off our website, which is a huge advantage and that's been soaring during covid UM and with everyone shopping from home in we grew over despite having pretty much our marketing ideas taken off the table. Um. And yeah, we finished in the mid double digit millions in revenue UM,
and we're planning to do over three times that year ahead. UM. Yeah, So we're super excited that we're basically able to exceed our goals for the year, even even with the environment we're currently and and in terms of profitability, we weren't profitable last year, but a big part of that is we purchased a big facility in southern California where we could connects our production and really go national. Well let's talk about this production. Um, what are the what is
the product lineup that you have right now? And how are you thinking about expansion? Yeah? So we have two flag three flagships that have won awards all over the US and internationally. UM World Beer Awards, International Beer Challenge. Our flagship run Wild ip A just won the gold in the US Beer Championship. They're all very approachable. UM are so our upside don golden nails, fifty calories crafted
to remove gluten. It's incredibly like drinking slightly hotty pills are basically UM a great crisp beer for any occasion. Our run Wild i p A is a super approachable West Coast I p A seventy calories crafted U made with all organic grains. UM and that's probably our top selling beer. And then UM, probably our hardest to get beer is our freewave Hazy I p A, which is now year round as well. UM that's available for subscription
on our website. Do you have UM plans to continue to add to the product lineup and and how do you also make sure that you you don't keep running out of these beverages that people want. Yeah, so capacity always was our biggest problem, especially in two that's nine UM and through we have limited releases where they sell out online in thirty seconds and people would be extremely frustrated by that. Yeah, that's good. It's kind of a good problem to have. I think it's good, but it's
super frustrating. If people are actually on the website refreshing it and can't buy it, it's it's not a great outcome because they move on. They can move on. Yeah, and so that is a big part of why we increase production this year is just to better serve our customers. Um. But yeah, it's we own the only two facilities in the country that are dedicated entirely to non alcoholic beer. UM, so we can pretty much right now make as much beer as the entire category is. So we are definitely
investing for the future. Are huge believers in it. UM. Relative to the rest of the world, the US has an enormous non alcoholic beer gap um. The European non alcoholic beer market is over thirty times as big as the US non alcoholic beer mark. UM. So there's a ton of potential for a very durable growth trends here. Hey, last question, can you go it alone? And Haser Buscher, one of the big guys, calls you and said, listen, we want you as part of our portfolio. Can be
a good thing. Um, But I don't know if that's the kind of identification you want, because you guys seem like you're going your own way here. We're so focused on our own growth and goals and we've been laying bricks forever UM for like a break that year, like it's coming ahead. UM. We feel like we're in the second or third anything I could see an I t o at some point. Our team is super proud of what we've built UM and behind that, like we have
an incredible investor team who we haven't even gone public with. UM, do you want to do you want to go public now? Because I was going to ask you who's behind you guys? Is it Angel investing? It doesn't sound like you guys are only you're not bootstrapping it. Yeah. So I've actually never talked about this publicly, but we do have a We have been incredibly fortunate about the people who have found our beer in the world and reached out UM.
Some huge names in that including J. J. Watt isn't the early investor of ours supporter he posts sometimes he like sneaks it into his Instagram stories sometimes Lance Armstrong UM who Lance was famously a very early Valtra and has become a huge fan of athletic growing UM. David Chang, the famous chef, he just like a huge foodie and the big beer guy, and he got it right from the start. And then we've been super lucky to have Justin Tuck, the New York Giants defensive end, multiple Super
Bowl winner. He he's been a super early investor and advocate. I met him last year actually at the Super Bowl. So I mean, these guys are fascinating in terms of where they end up investing their money. Yeah, and most chance, most times they've found us, which is like they are on it and super and like ready to support things they believe in. And along those lines, Blake Makowsky the founder of People Our First. He was one of our first investors and a long time board member and advisor UM.
The common thread through that whole group really is that our tooth of the Trails and Impact program really spoke out to them, like the impact we're having. All those guys are hugely charitable and like from j J and his Hurricane Harvey relief to what David Chang has done for mental health. Blake Makowsky was Tom's UM lance with with Strong, It's like a hugely charitable group and that has been a big threat. So we're really excited to start doing some time and stuff publicly with them in
their head. But first place I've talked about that, well, thank you so much for sharing that with us, because it really does. I love getting an idea of who's all behind it because it does give an idea of what they're thinking in terms of future trends. And Tim, yeah, just before we go, how much money in total? Have you guys raised a good amount? Are we talking tens
of millions or you know? Well, yeah, publicly we have raised four million through last March UM, but we are definitely stacking bricks for a huge year ahead and have some exciting plans will be breaking around in the middle of this year. Probably we'll come back in UK with us we have We have just launched our first of five overseas countries too. We are shipping UM nationwide to Canada with free shipping now also um yeah, like Tim said,
definitely come back bail and share with us. We love these kinds of stories, We love these kind of growth stories. And I do also feel like you guys are tapping into that wellness craze in a big way that has I think certainly gotten a gonna pants because of COVID, and we're all just focusing on both our mental wellness but definitely our physical health as well. So great stuff, good luck, happy New Year, and uh I know Tim and I will be reaching out to you again in the future. M