Five months after Lion Little World Beverages, Kirin’s craft beer division, announced to buy Bell’s Brewery, one of the leading craft beer brewers in the United States (inside.beer, 10.11.2021), and to merge it with New Belgium Brewing another large craft brewery in the United States which it bought two years before (inside.beer, 19.11.2019), the company now said it would lay off 30 employees. The redundancies are mainly in the sales department due to overlapping geographic sales areas and relationships with wholesalers or retailers. Employees have been offered severance packages and are encouraged to apply for open sales positions in other areas.
“Of course, any big transition requires change – especially one involving two of America’s most popular and iconic breweries with a total of 1,300 coworkers across the country. We’ve done everything possible to protect as many jobs as we could, but in a few cases there was irreconcilable overlap. Ultimately, we made the tough decision to say goodbye to a small number of good people,“ Adam Fetcher, New Belgium’s Senior Director of Communications and Public Engagement told Brewbound.
“This was necessary to solidify a combined team capable of doing right by the greatest beer portfolio in craft, delivering industry-best financial growth, and scaling positive impact for our coworkers and our communities. We wish nothing but the best to our friends and former colleagues,” he added.
