3: The Future of Processed Foods
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Bill Shufelt is the co-founder of Athletic Brewing, a non-alcoholic beer company.
Jeff Stevens is the founder of Wellbeing Brewing, a non-alcoholic beer brand.
Ted Fleming is the founder of Partake Brewing, a non-alcoholic beer company.
But, in the past few years, thats started to change.
Leading the charge areAthletic Brewing,WellBeing Brewing, andPartake Brewing.
Bill Shufelt is the co-founder of Athletic Brewing, a non-alcoholic beer company.
But they didnt care if it was any goodand it showed.
It was incredibly stale.
Fortunately, the latest options are the opposite of stale.
A lot of my life is geared toward being as healthy as possible, he says.
I eat primarily plant-based and consider myself a weekend warrior.
Back in 2016, he decided to stop drinking alcohol for a month while training for anultra marathon.
But it didnt exactly make social situations easy.
Im a big foodie and I didnt want to pair a nice meal with, like, a soda.
When they set out, Shufelt says it wasnt easy to overcome non-alcoholic beers stigma.
Bill Shufelt is the co-founder of Athletic Brewing, a non-alcoholic beer company.
At first, no brewers or distributors wanted to even try it, Shufelt says.
But as more people did, their minds were changed.
The company grew 1,000 percent in 2019 and were up about 500 percent in 2020, he says.
The key was creating a non-alcoholic beer that was truly a craft beer.
Partake Brewing founder Ted Fleming says craft brews are the key to their success too.
Partake is essentially a hybrid of these two methods, he explains.
Fleming also became interested in non-alcoholic beer out of an authentic need.
He has Crohns disease and says drinking alcohol made his symptoms worse.
So, as much as he liked the taste of beer, he had to give it up.
He started experimenting with making his own non-alcoholic craft beer in 2016 and launched it on Kickstarter in 2017.
When we launched in 2016, retailers and customers just couldnt wrap their head around it, he says.
But he saw that change in the following years assober curiosityandnon-alcoholic beveragesbecame trendy.
More people started seeking out non-alcoholic beer as a way to complement a healthy lifestyle, he says.
Its not an all or nothing thing either.
Shufelt says Athletic Brewing is especially popular among run clubs.
Theres a legit need to somehow separate the workday from the non-workday when youre living the WFH life.
This is something that still feels special and meets that need, without interfering with your sleep.
Another time to pop open a can?
Hey, might as well have two.
…
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