Vocation Brewery looked to borrow up to £3m last year, after losses before tax at the Hebden Bridge-based craft brewer shot up by 65%.
Losses before tax at Vocation Brewery grew from £582k to £966k in the year ended 31 March 2025, accounts published at Companies House last week showed.
The losses were driven by increases in Vocation’s staff costs (+£355k) and a decline in gross profits (–£172k), caused by weaker margins. Administrative expenses remained elevated at around £6.2m and there was also £400k attributed to unidentified “other one-off costs” reported.
Sales, meanwhile, were broadly flat year on year, at around £17.2m.
Negative net worth
Vocation ended the period with net liabilities of £715k, making it reliant on further funding to meet £7.55m in debts due within the next 12 months.
Some £5m of debt was attributed to group undertakings, with funds “unsecured, interest-free and repayable on demand”, according to Vocation. It is understood the funds are owed to the business’s principal private equity shareholder BGF Investment Management.
A further £1.1m was owed by Vocation to trade creditors, while banks and HMRC were owed £310k and £324k respectively in the next 12 months, according to the accounts.
Vocation maintained the “continued support” of BGF and had secured a future finance facility of £3m that was “currently under final review”, its directors revealed.
It is not clear where this facility was secured from, or whether it has since been drawn upon. Vocation declined to give further detail when approached by The Grocer.
“The directors consider that the company can maintain an appropriate level of liquidity, sufficient to meet the demands of the business including any capital and servicing obligations of external debt liabilities,” Vocation’s directors wrote in the accounts.
The business’s assets were also being “assessed for recoverability on a regular basis”, they added.
Fraud charge
Meanwhile, Vocation also recorded a £500k provision relating to “potential operational compliance issues” expected to be incurred in the year ended March 2027.
No further detail was given in the accounts, but last October the brewer was charged with fraud after being accused of emptying more waste water than permitted into public sewers, while also trying to cover up the wrongdoing. Vocation Brewery denies the charges.
Despite flatlining sales and widening losses, Vocation’s highest-paid director took home £188k in the year to last April, up 78.8% from the year prior. The business employed an average of 151 staff during the period, up from 147 in the year prior, but total spend on wages and salaries climbed by almost £600k to £4.5m.
Vocation’s directors insisted they were confident the year ahead would “deliver further growth across the company’s core revenue channels”.
“Whilst the wider market faces economic headwinds, the company is well positioned to continue growing revenue ahead of the sector,” they said. “Cost management remains a priority, and the company is actively mitigating the impact of increased beer duty and broader inflationary pressures.
“The directors believe the company is in a strong strategic and market position, with the investment made in recent years providing a solid platform to drive sales growth and build brand awareness.”
Declining off-trade sales
That confidence has not been borne out in reality, however, with Vocation Brewery’s off-trade sales falling by 2.8% to £13.7m over 52 weeks to 18 April 2026, according to NIQ data.
“Like many breweries, we’re working across competitive markets rocked by squeezed consumer spending, rising costs of doing business and increased regulation,” a spokeswoman for Vocation Brewery said. “The trading environment has become very price-sensitive, but we remain confident in our continued strategy of prioritising premium quality and bold flavours.
“Our investment and approach underpin our ambitions to drive long-term, scalable growth throughout the on and off-trade.”
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