On March 16, when the state shut down all dine-in restaurants, bars and tasting room service, Moonlight Meadery owner Michael Fairbrother got a series of gut-wrenching phone calls; each of his 30 distributors who deliver his product across the country and beyond, called to say that any open and future purchase orders were going to be put on hold.
Some said they wouldn’t be able to pay their outstanding invoices.
“That was significant. That was the day I had to lay off every single employee I have,” Fairbrother said.
At the time, Fairbrother had been looking for a farm property to purchase as part of an effort to leave the industrial property they currently rent and build and relocate to a permanent facility. When he realized his national and international revenue sources had all disappeared in a moment, Fairbrother went from looking to spend up to $2 million on farm property and construction to letting go of his eight employees.
On Monday (May 4), he was canning 625 cases of cider for national distribution. While he is still able to sell his product in New Hampshire, through the state’s liquor stores and area grocery stores or online, that amount of cider would be more than a six-months supply for the state alone — Fairbrother says he generally sells about 100 cases of product in New Hampshire each month.
Fairbrother says he still has 140 cases of Razz What She Said (6.5 percent), a session raspberry mead, that was ready to ship before the cancellations. Now they have nowhere to go as local distributors are still selling through their existing inventory.
Before the shutdowns, Fairbrother estimates he was making about $125,000 in monthly sales. Now, it’s down to about $10,000.
“But the rent and utilities pretty much eat that $10,000,” he said.
Less than a quarter of the business, up to $15,000, normally comes from the tasting room and tours.
“On the positive side, we have seen our best month of sales for online sales out of our corporate history this month,” Fairbrother said, referring to April.
Between about mid-March to mid-April, Fairbrother was the only one working at the business, trying to figure out a game plan.
One idea, at least to keep busy, was to host Zoom meetings with homebrew clubs from around the country and spend an hour talking about making mead. Fairbrother held his first one with a homebrew club in Gainsville, Florida on April 22, and he’s booked 10 more.
In some cases, it may bring him some business. Fairbrother estimated he netted about $500 in online sales from that first event, but some of the homebrew clubs he booked are located in parts of the country that can’t even get a hold of his product yet.
As soon as restaurants shut down and distributors stopped buying, Fairbrother applied for the Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) and the Payroll Protection Program (PPP) through the Small Business Administration’s relief program.
So far, he’s received an $8,000 grant advance for the EIDL, and $73,400 in PPP funds, which he’s using to pay for rent and utilities, as well as rehire six of his eight employees.
Fairbrother said he has offered them increased salaries to incentivize their return, because they were making more money on federally subsidized unemployment benefits.
That program lasts for eight weeks, and he needs to hire the same number of employees he had before if he doesn’t want to owe the money back in the form of a loan.
Fairbrother says he still hasn’t heard back about the EIDL loan, how much he will qualify for and when the money will be disbursed.
In the meantime, they’re trying to bottle as much product as possible so they have inventory ready to sell after the eight weeks of life support ends.
Fairbrother said his business model rode the craft beer boom to get to where it is now, but he describes it as a “niche on top of a niche” business that sells a “luxury” item with a relatively high price point.
“While we have a very good fan base, I don’t know how to wring that fan base even further to help us stay afloat,” he said.
So far, he’s received strong support in New Hampshire, from local beer stores and grocery chains. Recently, he was driving the Moonlight Meadery truck, making a delivery to Trader Joe’s in Nashua when a car pulled alongside him on Route 3 and held up a sticky note that said “Keep up the great work, thank you.”
“The New Hampshire stuff has been inspirational,” Fairbrother said.
While he’s heartened by the support, he said he’s very worried about what will happen in eight weeks. The company is struggling with purchasing basic supplies like bottles, corks and honey. He has some of that on order, but he’s trying not to get further into debt, he said.
“We’ve basically had to max out our credit cards and line of credit to keep where we are right now,” Fairbrother said.
He said his local bank, Primary Bank, has been “extraordinarily good” to them, and granted a six-month grace period, which he said has really been the key to keeping the lights on.
And he’s been able to pay off all his suppliers so far.
Got brew news? Reach Ryan Lessard at ryanlessard@gmail.com
