New Belgium Brewing lays off 28 in Asheville, Fort Collins

FORT COLLINS, Colorado - New Belgium Brewing has laid off 28 employees between its headquarters and its Asheville locations, the company announced late Friday.

The cuts — less than 4 percent of the workforce — were made to better align staffing with the size of the brewery, according to a press release.

The country’s fourth-largest craft brewery — which will continue to distribute to all 50 states — cut a variety of positions throughout support staff, administration, IT, HR and production. Three Asheville employees were let go.

“Today has been a tough day at New Belgium” said CEO Steve Fechheimer in the release. “We feel deeply for the employees impacted and wish them nothing but the best in the future. Going forward, we will have more resolve than ever to grow our business and create value for this 100 percent-employee owned company.”

Fechheimer, a former whiskey executive, was hired this past summer.

"These changes were not driven by a decline in our business," the release said, noting that New Belgium has sold more cases to retailers through distributors in 2017 over 2016. "However, beginning in 2013, we expanded our staff to support a brewery about 40 percent larger than New Belgium is today, and we haven’t yet achieved our goals in the face of changing dynamics in craft brewing."

New Belgium maintains more than 700 total employees across the country. The company's sales staff was unaffected by the cuts, according to a press release. The brewery opened its $140 million Asheville facility in 2016.

New Belgium has brewed more than 900,000 barrels of beer in each of the past four years. The company expects to make about the same amount this year.

The company says it will continue to grow the business and is "firmly committed to being a national brewery," continuing operations at both locations.

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Co-founder Kim Jordan added, “As leaders we balance the needs of the organization with our care and respect for all of the people within. Always a difficult task. Steve, the Board, our management team and I have crafted what we believe to be the best outcome for New Belgium and its employee-owner coworkers. We have great leadership in place, iconic brands, powerful innovation hitting the market, and strong sales, marketing and brewing teams. All of this makes me more confident than ever in the future of New Belgium.”

The expansion brewery, which serves the eastern United States, was built at 21 Craven St., the site of the old Asheville Stockyard, a historic property once used as circus fairground and an auto salvage business. More recently, it had been a brownfield site requiring extensive environmental cleanup.

The project began in 2012 as the Asheville area was emerging as a major beer producer. Sierra Nevada announced its Mills River brewery that year, as did Oskar Blues, which opened in Brevard.

After a delay of about eight months, groundbreaking was May 1, 2014, for the $140 million New Belgium project, which includes a separate distribution center in Enka.

The first bottles of beer were filled in April 2016.