Good Robot embraces co-packing

“It is a different gear, but it kind of brings us back to the roots of craft brewing and how we got into it, it’s more collaborative. We started out getting lots of help from everybody else in the industry and giving help where we could, and this is an extension of that.” Doug Kehoe Good Robot Brewing co-founder

To the question of whether Good Robot Brewing has evolved the way it has because of planning or happenstance, co-founder Doug Kehoe said it’s probably both.

“We always had a vision to grow and become a prominent craft brewery in the Nova Scotia market,” Kehoe said this week. “COVID really gave us a kick in the pants, because we had to go from being a brew pub to not being a brew pub, because we couldn’t be open. So, during COVID, with a grant done through Perennia, we got a canning line and that really opened the doors to us controlling our own destiny, as far as getting different products out to consumers, and being able to grow and meet the demands of the NSLC and grow through them.”

“We saw a hole in the market, we saw an opportunity to service folks that were exactly like ourselves, and to work with other people to make great beer out here.” Doug Kehoe Good Robot Brewing co-founder

Co-packing (assembling a client’s ingredients or components into a final product), now a significant part of Good Robot’s business, was not permitted in the beverage alcohol sector in Nova Scotia until recent legislative changes.

Now, in addition to its busy Halifax taproom on Robie Street, the company has a large space in the Elmsdale Business Park, where a “technologically advanced” canning line can fill 100 beer cans – 355 ml or 473 ml – per minute.

“We like the location, like being out on a highway,” said Kehoe. “I grew up rurally so I like being a little bit out of the city. It’s a good spot, this building was for rent and we wanted to be here, to make inroads into a new community.”

Good Robot, which has 15 employees in Elmsdale, and up to 70 in total, says its canning line includes the only pasteurizer in a craft brewery in the province, and uses ionized air to make sure every can is perfectly clean before it’s filled with liquid.

The equipment gives the company six times the fermentation capacity it previously had, and the ability to take on canning for other craft brewers for whom demand exceeds supply.

“We’ve got three big clients we’re working with on the fermentation side, one in New Brunswick, one in P.E.I. and one here. Outside of fermentation, we’re working with other folks, too, to package their products. We’ve got some cider brands, cocktail brands, and we’re working towards getting flavoured water and that kind of stuff, too,” said Kehoe, adding that the new business came with a steep learning curve.

“It is a different gear, but it kind of brings us back to the roots of craft brewing and how we got into it, it’s more collaborative. We started out getting lots of help from everybody else in the industry and giving help where we could, and this is an extension of that.”

A big chunk of the copacking business comes from other breweries that need extra capacity to meet growing demand without making a capital investment.

“That’s kind of where we saw our opportunity, that and the change in legislation to allow co-packing, this past year. We saw a hole in the market, we saw an opportunity to service folks that were exactly like ourselves, and to work with other people to make great beer out here.”

Kehoe said the loosening of regulations, changes the industry had lobbied for, led to what he thinks will be a watershed moment for craft brewing in Nova Scotia.

“I hope so, I hope it helps folks grow that have the ambition and the ability to grow,” he said. “There’s always been a steep cost to entry to get into this game, having to bring real manufacturing equipment in with you, and this will help that. The way they’ve tempered it is that half your capacity can be co-packed and half done by yourself. That feels like a good middle ground to the folks that still wanted there to be some cost to entry.”