Max, I looked into this as a meadmaker several years back. I've been brewing mead for about 20 years now, and wine and beer for about 8 years. Everyone who's sampled my brews really wants to be able to just buy it anytime they want. After much prodding I looked into it.
Your mileage may vary as I've kind of given up on these ventures because they are very cost prohibitive to get going. So take the advice for what it's worth.
First, you want to be a retailer; you must be licensed. This is VERY expensive and you have to purchase 100% of your product from a licensed Distributor. If your local distributor doesnt carry the beer you want to sell, you're SOL. You can request it, but Distributors need a LOT of demand to get new products on their list. Distributors arent monopolies by nature, usually most markets will have multiple distributors so you might be able to shop around, but smaller markets will be limited.
As a manufacturer, if you were to brew your product to sell it's easier but much much more expensive. When I priced everything out to just have required equipment it was over $200,000 and that was shopping around for used equipment (over $500 for all new equipment). But even then, you need to get special licensing to sell your product across state lines. Up until I think 2004 or 2005, all mail order sales required in-person orders (visiting a winery for example) This has thankfully changed but other issues still remain.
Many states will not allow alcohol to be shipped in under any circumstances. Some states have requirements on alcohol percentages.
Beer tends to ship one of 2 ways; either you're visiting the breweries website and ordering direct from the brewery Or beer of the month clubs. Again, even the BoM clubs tend to be one of 2 categories; either a single bottle of beer as a "sample" which is covered by different regulations and is easier to do. Or as a "middle man" type operation where the "club" is connected to multiple breweries that are already licensed to sell. At which point they just operate as order takers and have no licensing requirements to perform this service.
However, there's a few caveats. If a brewery went through the expense and hassle to get the shipping licenses; they dont need you. Those that havent been licensed for shipping either cant because of costs involved, or have been denied for whatever reasons (horror stories abound when it comes to BATF licensing and license maintenance).
With the budget you're talking, I'd have to say you'd need to double it just to get a lawyer involved so you dont suffer ATF raids or even jailtime for breaking rules.
Bottom line: you were successful because you completely bypassed city, county, state, and federal regulations. You were the only provider so you had zero competition. You are incredibly lucky that you got tapped on the shoulder by a brewer that said knock it off rather than face an ATF raid and prison sentence.
For $5k I doubt you'll get very far in the licensing business (most of them locally sell for $50,000 or more for retail licenses)
distributorships arent a state based thing. It's all legally encoded into ATF regs; there are different classes of licensing; Manufacturer, Farm/Small Manufacturer (less than 10,000 gallons per year), Distributor/Wholsale Sales; and Retail Sales. None of these licenses are allowed to overlap.
The problem with startup breweries/wineries is that they have to make thier sales exclusively to distributors, then market to retailers (get demand for the distros to carry). However, as a retailer, you're only allowed to purchase from the distributors. If the distro doesnt carry a product you want to sell, you legally cannot sell it.
The primary reason for anti-biotics is due to the fact that the farmers feed their livestock nutritionally devoid but massively cheaper corn - which weakens the overall immune system. Antibiotics are not needed when "organic" measures are put into place and cows are free range and fed better, nutritionally beneficial foods to begin with. But that's costlier, so, not going to happen on a commercial scale, regardless of how inefficient and unsustainable it is to continue.
I have to say, I've been hearing about the challenges for several months and have been far too intimidated to attempt them as I'm a total newb on the crypto side of things.
After reading this article though, I figured it would be safe to assume that I'll learn as I go through them.
Your mileage may vary as I've kind of given up on these ventures because they are very cost prohibitive to get going. So take the advice for what it's worth.
First, you want to be a retailer; you must be licensed. This is VERY expensive and you have to purchase 100% of your product from a licensed Distributor. If your local distributor doesnt carry the beer you want to sell, you're SOL. You can request it, but Distributors need a LOT of demand to get new products on their list. Distributors arent monopolies by nature, usually most markets will have multiple distributors so you might be able to shop around, but smaller markets will be limited.
As a manufacturer, if you were to brew your product to sell it's easier but much much more expensive. When I priced everything out to just have required equipment it was over $200,000 and that was shopping around for used equipment (over $500 for all new equipment). But even then, you need to get special licensing to sell your product across state lines. Up until I think 2004 or 2005, all mail order sales required in-person orders (visiting a winery for example) This has thankfully changed but other issues still remain.
Many states will not allow alcohol to be shipped in under any circumstances. Some states have requirements on alcohol percentages.
Beer tends to ship one of 2 ways; either you're visiting the breweries website and ordering direct from the brewery Or beer of the month clubs. Again, even the BoM clubs tend to be one of 2 categories; either a single bottle of beer as a "sample" which is covered by different regulations and is easier to do. Or as a "middle man" type operation where the "club" is connected to multiple breweries that are already licensed to sell. At which point they just operate as order takers and have no licensing requirements to perform this service.
However, there's a few caveats. If a brewery went through the expense and hassle to get the shipping licenses; they dont need you. Those that havent been licensed for shipping either cant because of costs involved, or have been denied for whatever reasons (horror stories abound when it comes to BATF licensing and license maintenance).
With the budget you're talking, I'd have to say you'd need to double it just to get a lawyer involved so you dont suffer ATF raids or even jailtime for breaking rules.
Bottom line: you were successful because you completely bypassed city, county, state, and federal regulations. You were the only provider so you had zero competition. You are incredibly lucky that you got tapped on the shoulder by a brewer that said knock it off rather than face an ATF raid and prison sentence.
For $5k I doubt you'll get very far in the licensing business (most of them locally sell for $50,000 or more for retail licenses)