Five Legal Tips Every Craft Brewer Should Know: Protect Your Brewery and Thrive

Launching and scaling a craft brewery in the UK is a dream venture, but amidst all the creativity and passion, it's easy to lose sight of a few legal priorities that can safeguard your business. As happy Helium clients, Craig and the VOG Brewery team inspired this blog to help identify the 5 most important legal priorities to get right for craft brewers.

Remember that while each priority might look complex and expensive, a good lawyer, armed with a familiar, up to date template from LexisNexis or Practical Law can tailor them quickly for a client. It makes many of the suggestions below far more quick and cost efficient than they sound and reduces friction and cost for everyone, including your partners and clients.

[July Offer: This month we’re offering a free document health check and, if you need it, a free legal template to help you get started. Contact team@helium.law if you’re interested in setting up a free call to find out more.]

‍

1. Company Formation

Starting your company off with clearly defined rights and responsibilities for all parties involved is crucial to avoid conflict and existential business issues down the line. If you didn’t do this well when you started out, or haven’t kept things up to date as your business evolved, please don’t delay a minute longer. 

Actions:

• Company Formation: the full collection of documents you need to register a company. Together they define your roles, assets, shareholders, rights and decision-making processes. Easy to do when you start out, but gets harder with time.some text
  • Memorandum of Association: signed by shareholders forming the company.
  • Articles of Association: agreed rules for running the company
  • Form IN01: application to register your company: name, address, directors, secretary, shareholdings, etc
  • Statement of Capital: share capital and rights for each class of share.
  • Statement of Compliance: Confirms compliance with Companies Act 2006
  • Register: submit the above documents to Companies House
  • Register for Corporation Tax with HMRC within three months.
  • Set Up Company Records and Registers: record of key people and finances.
• Partnership Agreements: agreement between founders and investors to ensure smooth operations as you expand. For example, this is where to define roles, remuneration and conflict resolution mechanisms

‍

2. Intellectual Property Protection

Protecting your unique trademarks, brand designs or special recipes is vital to protect your business and give potential investors confidence that your business is built on solid foundations. Protecting your IP is about defining, registering and defending the unique essence of what makes you different and better than your competitors. 

Actions:

• Register Key Trademarks: Register your brewery’s name, logo and core product names to stop competitors encroaching on your brand identity.
• Secure Copyrights: Protect your label designs, graphic style and other creative works to ensure your brand's visual elements are uniquely yours.
• Protect Your Trade Secrets: Your recipes and brewing processes are literally your secret sauce and are hard to trademark and copyright so you need to keep them secret. Get a good NDA in place and use it liberally with anyone who you work closely with. For employees, ensure you have robust Confidentiality and Non-Compete Clauses in your standard Employment Agreement. 

‍

3. Employment Contracts and Employee Manuals

Your employees are the beating heart of your brewery. Defining clear employment terms and ensuring compliance with constantly changing labour laws and best practise is essential to be able to hire and retain the best talent and avoid damaging conflicts and complications in the future.

Actions:

• Employment Agreements: Outline roles, responsibilities, salaries, benefits and termination conditions. Start with a quality, up to date UK template and regularly update it to reflect changes in employment law.
• Employee Manual: Define policies for handling grievances, disciplinary actions, bonuses and employee benefits and refer to these in your Employment Agreement to ensure everyone is on the same page and promotes a fair workplace. 

‍

4. Distributor Agreements

Your distributor can make or break your business’s growth. Establishing clear, win-win terms with your distributors that make growth in everyone’s best interest ensures you get the focus you need while avoiding distracting disputes.

Actions:

• Use a Quality Distribution Agreement Template: Define terms for product distribution, sales targets, margins and territories.

“Helium helped us get our distribution agreement in place quickly and much more cheaply than other law firms quoted us. Now we can sell more delicious beer! Thanks!” Craig Edmunds Founder, VOG Brewery

‍

5. Supplier Agreements

Your supplier relationships are the backbone of your business’s resilience and growth. Negotiating robust, mutually beneficial agreements with suppliers ensures access to quality ingredients, fosters loyalty and ensures their commitment to supporting you when you most need it, even against competing demands from other clients.

Actions:

• Supplier Agreement: Define precise terms for ingredient quality, delivery schedules, pricing structures, payment schedules and contingency plans. Ensure suppliers benefit from your growth and reward suppliers' contributions to your success. Check-in regularly to keep suppliers engaged and aligned with your business objectives. 

‍

Summary

Protecting your intellectual property, establishing solid employment contracts and company foundations, negotiating clear distributor and supplier relationships and building robust partnership agreements are the most essential legal tasks for any small brewery. These steps mitigate legal risks, promote smooth operations and team dynamics and support your brewery’s growth and success. They can also cost a lot less than you think with the right legal team  working with you and save you from costly future surprises.

‍

‍[July Offer: This month we’re offering a free document health check and, if you need it, a free legal template to help you get started. Contact team@helium.law if you’re interested in setting up a free call to find out more.]

‍