'Not the market, not a bad season': Why a beloved B.C. brewery is for sale
After 14 years of operating, B.C.’s Persephone Brewing has announced that it is up for sale. However, it’s not for the reason that you might immediately think.
“Persephone is looking for its next owner. We’re opening up the search for the right person or people to carry this farm and brewery into its next chapter, and if the right match doesn’t come along, we’ll close this chapter ourselves with the care, gratitude, and on our own terms, with a wind down this fall,” shared Brian Smith, co-founder and CEO of the brewery, on Persephone’s website.
Located on the Sunshine Coast, Persephone Brewing uses its land to grow its own hops as well as for beer production.
“On July 2, 2023, I got on my bike and came home a different person. Paraplegic, permanently. Since then, I have poured everything I have into learning how to keep leading this company the way it deserves to be led, and I’m proud of a lot of what we figured out together. But leading Persephone the way Persephone deserves takes a version of me that the road took back three summers ago. I’ve done the honest math, and the best thing I can do for this company now is hand the wheel to someone who can drive it the way it’s built to be driven,” said Smith.
“That’s it. That’s the reason. Not the market, not a bad season, not any person or partner or supplier. Just a body with different plans than mine and a company too good to be led at anything less than full throttle.”
Smith went on to assure folks that this is a handoff, not a goodbye, and that whoever took over the business was “about to get very lucky.”
“Both the Gibsons and Powell River operations are turnkey. The systems work, the recipes work, the farm produces, and the team knows how to run all of it. These businesses don’t need a rescue, they need fresh energy and the right equity behind them, and either one is fully capable of running profitably on its own steam. Fourteen years of hard-won lessons, already learned. A community, already built. A brand people don’t just recognize but love,” Smith wrote.
He is encouraging anyone even remotely interested to reach out, look around, and see if they want to be the new owners.
“And if the search doesn’t land? Then we’ll manage a structured, responsible wind down this fall, with the same care for our team, our farm partners, our suppliers, and this community that we’ve tried to bring to everything else we’ve done here. But between us, we’re not planning for that outcome so much as we’re hoping right past it,” added Smith.
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Persephone Brewing
Address:Ā 1053 Stewart Rd., Gibsons
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