Breweries buy or lease kegs, fill them with beer and send them out the door.<\/span><\/p>\n Do you have a Brewery Best Practice to make sure you get them all back? If you were to look at your balance sheet, would you be able to find all the kegs that you are supposed to have on hand?<\/span><\/p>\n If you\u2019re like many craft breweries the answer is no.<\/span><\/p>\n Kegs are not just stainless steel, they are dollar bills.<\/b> Kegs have legs and they disappear. Every day, there are a lot of dollar bills walking out your door.<\/span><\/p>\n In this article we\u2019ll review the cost of all those kegs, and share the <\/span>process that the big breweries use to keep track of their kegs<\/b>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The Fatal Flaw with Keg Returns<\/b><\/p>\n The fatal flaw with most keg deposit and return systems is that <\/span>there is no incentive for anyone to return the keg<\/b> to you. You are the rightful owner of those kegs, but the system doesn\u2019t care if you ever get them back.<\/span><\/p>\n Follow the money.<\/b> You sell a keg of beer to the distributor, and charge them a deposit. The distributor sells that keg to the retailer and charges them a deposit. If the retailer makes off premise sales, they charge the end customer a deposit.<\/span><\/p>\n At this point in the keg cycle, everyone has been paid back except for you. As a result, no one really cares what happens to your kegs.<\/b><\/p>\n A typical keg deposit ranges from $30 to $50. However, the actual value of the keg far exceeds this amount.<\/span><\/p>\n The retailer has been paid. The distributor has been paid. The only one that hasn\u2019t been paid is you \u2013 the brewery. No one has an incentive to get your keg back, and you are left to eat the loss. The loss is the difference between what you charge for a deposit and what the keg cost you.<\/span><\/p>\n Understand that no one in the cycle has as much to lose financially as you do. If you don\u2019t fix the keg problem, no one else is going to step up and fix it for you.<\/span><\/p>\n Kegs are Assets: Treat them that way<\/b><\/p>\n Your balance sheet keeps track of all your brewery assets. Here you\u2019ll find the cost of your brewhouse, tanks, and capital improvements made to your brewery. You will also find the cost of all the kegs you have purchased.<\/span><\/p>\n You may have a couple hundred or many tens of thousands of kegs listed on your balance sheet. At an average cost of $100 per keg, this adds to up to tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in assets. <\/span>The question is: do you know where these kegs are?<\/b><\/p>\n Companies go to great lengths to safeguard and protect their assets. You wouldn\u2019t dream of letting a fermentation or brite tank out of your sight, but you let kegs go unaccounted for weeks or months at a time. Sometimes, these kegs never return at all.<\/span><\/p>\n Action item: Look at your balance sheet and find out how many kegs you are supposed to have on hand. How big is the number?<\/b><\/p>\n Chances are it is huge and will surprise you.<\/span><\/p>\n Count your Kegs or Risk a Huge Financial Loss<\/b><\/p>\n Once you\u2019ve checked your balance sheet to see how many kegs you should have, it\u2019s time to find out if you actually still have them. It\u2019s time to count the kegs.<\/span><\/p>\n\n