Worcester Business Journal

wbjournal.com | Novermber 27, 2017 | Worcester Business Journal 25 Take a closer look at your leadership team The Worcester Business Journal welcomes letters to the editor and commentary submissions. Please send submissions to Brad Kane, editor, at bkane@wbjournal.com. W ith the explosion of small breweries in the U.S., it is not unusual to hear stories enumerating the problems encountered by these breweries as a result of outdated alcohol laws and regulations. It begs the question: What changes in the law can be made to allow these small breweries to thrive? There are three brewing licenses defined by Massachusetts law: farmer brewer, pub brewer and manufacturer. Farmer and pub are responsible for the boom in small breweries. Most breweries opening today are licensed as farmer brewers. Does that mean they are a farmer or are obtain- ing product locally from farmers? No, none of that. It means they can only sell their alcohol prod- uct at their bar or tasting room, plus they can freely self-dis- tribute their product to other retailers and wholesalers. So what's the farmer thing about? I'm not sure, but I think the intention was to inspire farmers to grow their own barley and hops and create value by retailing these products. However, I cannot think of a single farmer brewer licensee that does this, though I'm not saying there isn't one out there. The situation for farmer brewer licensees is pretty good, since they can self-distribute and sell retail. Their one big problem – a problem for all brewery licensees – is limit- ed access to markets due to Massachusetts Franchise Law. Franchise law requires the brewer and distributor/whole- saler relationship to be permanent in a particular region of distribution. In other words, brewers are stuck with a dis- tributor unless they can demonstrate a serious grievance and have bottomless pockets for legal fees. A distributor not sell- ing your beer, or not selling it well, can just sit on your prod- uct, effectively putting you out of business. Franchise law was meant to protect small distributor/wholesalers from big breweries back in the 70s. 45 years later the landscape has flipped and the now very large distributors are still being protected. And they love it! The pub brewer license is for businesses wanting to to retail alcohol other than their house-brewed beer. Properly licensed pub brewers have the ability to pour anything they want along with all of their own beers. However, this license is restricted from self distribution. Pub brewers must use a distributor/wholesaler (along with that permanent relation- ship dictated by franchise law) - a very expensive option for a brewery trying to get started in distribution. Massachusetts currently has around 140+ breweries (and that number is growing), which ranks us at about 17th among states in the U.S. Another statistic, breweries per cap- ita, ranks Massachusetts 24th! Clearly there is room to grow. It may take a while to clean up the brewery laws – and good people are working on it – but in the meantime, if issues surrounding the franchise law can be remedied and self distribution can be legalized for pub brewers (both have bills pending on Beacon Hill), small breweries can enjoy unfettered access to markets and Massachusetts can get back on track as a leading brewing state. Rick Walton is owner and president of Moon Hill Brewing Co. in Gardner. Fix the beer distribution laws V I E W P O I N T E D I T O R I A L BY RICK WALTON Special to the Worcester Business Journal Rick Walton WO R D F R O M T H E W E B Tweets of the week "Congrats @AnitaMattsson! Way to make an #impact." - Amy Morton (@AmyMMorton), Nov. 16, on a story about a WPI professor being awarded $1.7 million for cancer research "Powerful speech by Maria Milagros Vazquez at @WBJournal#Outstanding WomenInBusiness awards lunch. She says: 'Head up, shoulders down, back straight.' Confidence. Empowering. Inspiring." - Lorraine Martinelle (@lumamartinelle) on the WBJ's Outstanding Women in Business ceremony W Facebook feedback "Almost $150k per unit? The buyer must have some BIG plans to add value to the property...." - Nate Fournier, Nov. 16, on a story about Worcester apartment complex Longfellow Manor being sold for $7 million "Sad they couldn't come up with any innovative ideas to keep it going." - Michael Kozlowski, Nov. 14, on a story about a Regal Westborough Stadium cinema closing W hat was it about the recent sexual abuse scandals that ignited a such a spark, and that has brought to the forefront the conversation about the continued lack of women in senior leadership positions? Clearly Hollywood and other indus- tries run by an old-boy network of powerful men can create a culture ignoring or excusing abuses that have gone on for far too long. So how do you go about finding a solution? There is no simple path – but one can certainly start by taking a closer look at leadership – within the senior ranks of our organizations, our govern- ing bodies & boards and at the top of the mast- head. Does the leadership of an organization look like its workforce and its customers? Whether you're hiring employees, promoting staff or funding a startup – you want to select the best from the pool of talent. Yet in practice, more times than not, half of the population gets signifi- cant preference over the other. The gender pay gap in Massachusetts shows women make 84 cents for every $1 a man makes; less than 6 per- cent of Fortune 500 CEOs are women; and nationally, men take up more than 80 percent of the boards of publicly traded companies Despite our sense of being an enlightened, for- ward-thinking state, Massachusetts lags behind the rest of the nation when it comes to the growth of woman-owned businesses. According to its annual 2017 State of Women-Owned Businesses Report commissioned by American Express OPEN, the number of woman-owned businesses in Massachusetts has grown by 50 percent since 2007, compared to 114 percent nationally. Fewer startups means fewer entrepreneurs taking a risk, less innovation, and less wealth creation. Getting the state and Central Massachusetts firing on all cylinders will take a multi-pronged approach. There are some steps already being taken – like giving woman-owned firms a certain percentage of publicly funded government contracts and encouraging women at a young age to have an entrepreneurial spirit and strive for leadership positions. But stronger steps can be taken to strengthen the hand of women entrepreneurs, like setting up institutional financing or programs for women to start their own businesses, or creating gender balance goals for company boards. Does that progress in gender equality need to be legis- lated? We would hope not, but without a greater awareness of the imbalance, and a plan to address it, many organizations may have too narrow a view from the top and fall short of their potential. There are lots of women in senior leadership positions in our region, and many running their own organizations. Yet the male/female ratios at the management team level, when looking at the whole picture, are still out of balance. Companies have half their workforce as women, but with few women in their senior ranks or on their board of directors, those firms need to ask themselves what message they are sending. Could they be a smarter, more inclusive, more enlightened, and more successful organization if they tapped the leadership skills of more women? The answer is yes – not by promoting a less qualified candidate because they are a woman, but by helping to develop the leadership talents of more women to make their organizations stronger. W

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