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Drink Fresh Beer and Jolly Good Beer enter administration
Distributor Drink Fresh Beer, which owns the subsidiary Jolly Good Beer, has undertaken insolvency and ceased trading with immediate effect.
Kingsbridge CS have been appointed as insolvency practitioners and will be managing the process, which has resulted in all staff at the company being made redundant.
In a statement released on social media this week, Jolly Good Beer managing director Ciaran Reynolds said: “Since taking over Jolly Good Beer in April 2023 it has proven to be very difficult to turn the business around.”
Reynolds explained: “Over the last 15 months we have pushed extensive resources into trying to rebuild and improve trade – but have faced a series of setbacks and unfortunately cannot make it work. I am truly sorry for the impact this will cause for our staff, customers and suppliers.”
In a statement to the sector, Jolly Good Beer founder Yven Seth also added: “ I long for the optimism we had as a team at the start of 2020 – things were good, the balance sheet strong, the trajectory enthusiastic and we had big plans…but it wasn’t to be. The pandemic period drained everything we had and converted that positive balance sheet to nothing but bank debt. Lacklustre government support for the hospitality supply chain, increasing employer costs of running furlough, and furlough ending before the hospitality industry was even close to back on its feet, left CBILS lending as the only way to carry on. The subsequent period of cost inflation, economic uncertainty, and lack of real hospitality market recovery made the debt unserviceable. As a result, I had no option but to pass the reins of JGB over to Drink Fresh Limited.”
Seth revealed that “the new owners took it on as a going concern – satisfying much of the debt in the process. Without them Jolly Good Beer would have ended before 2023.”
Now, as “the decision has been made to place the business into administration” Seth admitted: “it destroys me to see everything I spent a decade building, and trying to hold together and save, end like this.”
Seth has highlighted how he has “been left with the remaining CBILS debt still in my name (as a sole trader) and thus probable bankruptcy” and apologised to “everyone affected by this” and included staff, trade customers, brewers, suppliers and the Drink Fresh team.
He concluded: “I understand the anger and frustration” and noted that he now has “no ownership, directorial or accounting involvement in Drink Fresh Limited” from hereon in.
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