Isaac Showaki is hitting the ground running as he prepares for the Oct. 24 grand opening of his new contract brewing operation in Waunakee. There will be no putting off the installation of the high-efficiency equipment that enhances his chances for success. Focus on Energy and other business resources saw to that.
Octopi Brewing recently completed an 18,000-square-foot production brewery with state-of-the-art brewing equipment and water treatment systems that primarily brew beers for other business entities, not just brewing companies that have either run out of capacity or don’t have adequate facilities.
As Showaki notes, the contract brewery will have three types of clients: existing breweries, startup breweries trying to enter the market, and retail and hospitality chains. But to increase the odds of business success, the brewery recently completed two projects with the help of Focus on Energy’s business incentive program. One involved the installation of LED lighting in a high-bay area, and the other pertains to the purchase of a high-efficiency process boiler.
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Octopi Brewing’s high-efficiency boiler. Advertisement
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The LED lamps and downlight fixtures will be installed with occupancy sensors instead of incandescent and high-bay linear fluorescent fixtures, bringing an estimated savings of nearly 400,000 lifecycle kilowatt hours. Meanwhile, the installation of a new, efficient steam boiler to serve brewery operations will result in estimated savings of nearly 40,000 lifecycle therms (a therm being a unit of heat energy equal to 100,000 British thermal units, or BTUs).
Many times, Focus on Energy’s business assistance program helps replace antiquated and often energy-wasting equipment with new energy efficient equipment, but the case of Octopi Brewing shows that startups also can get into the sustainability act.
Having seen how substandard equipment limits the effectiveness of other contract brewers, Showaki is especially pleased with the boiler. There were cheaper, less efficient boilers on the market that could do the job, but he wanted a boiler that would last anywhere from 30 to 40 years with good maintenance.
“We didn’t want to spend money on a boiler anytime soon,” he notes. “We asked Focus on Energy if there was any incentive as far as a higher efficiency boiler, and they said yes. They compared the high-efficiency boiler versus a standard boiler and from that they gave us assistance, which helped us go with the better model down the road.”
Showaki, who previously operated a brewery in Chicago, heard about Focus on Energy through Baker Tilly Virchow Kraus, the accounting firm. Other partners in this business launch were Wisconsin Business Development, which helps grow businesses with funding assistance, and the Bank of Sun Prairie. However, Focus on Energy gave him a special peace of mind that Octopi Brewing has a legitimate chance to fulfill its brand promise as a contract brewery.
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Showaki’s previous experience with contract breweries wasn’t encouraging. He was part of a new craft brewery in Chicago that relied on contract breweries to make its beers — a wheat beer, golden ale, and dark ale similar to a porter — but the contract brewery’s reliability was less than ideal. “I had just the worst time doing it because the contract breweries we worked with had old equipment that produced poor quality beer,” he recalls. “They were never on time. We couldn’t get the right packaging, or they didn’t have the specs we wanted. Sometimes, they couldn’t use the ingredients we wanted in our beers.”
Given that experience, and given the explosion of craft breweries in the Midwest, he knew there was a real need for a good contract brewery in the region. With automated equipment, Octopi Brewing serves breweries in Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio, and its business model calls for it to do more than brew beer. The customer service component helps breweries with their commercial strategies, marketing plans, and recipe development.
“We partner with these breweries, take them out on their own, and see them grow,” Showaki says. “Their growth is our success, basically.”
Showaki praised the way Focus on Energy personnel guided him through the process and he cited the program’s services as one differentiator between the business climates of Wisconsin and Illinois. He’s also looking forward to working with Focus on Energy on future expansions and equipment installations.
“In Illinois, we didn’t have programs like this or programs that we could tap into and help us get better equipment,” he states. “One of the main reasons I moved to Wisconsin was because Wisconsin was so much easier to work with than Illinois. Apart from many other reasons, we were happy and surprised by how great it was to work in this state and how pro-business they are.
“Coming from Illinois, where it took me seven months to get my liquor license, and to Wisconsin, where it took me two weeks — for me, that was a big difference.”
Incentivizing business
Focus on Energy, funded by the energy utilities that serve Wisconsin, requires participating businesses to find a trusted contractor partner to do the work. Its programs offer contractors both prescriptive (defined) and custom incentives for the installation of energy-efficiency equipment, but the end customer gets a continuous energy-saving gift.
Erin Soman, program manager for the Business Incentive Program, notes the BIP serves a variety of commercial and industrial businesses that work in concert with trade allies (contractors) on energy efficiency projects. Thus far in 2015 a staff of 30 people has served nearly 2,000 customers.
They don’t necessarily involve the same old faces. “We’ve served nearly 2,000 unique customers this year and more than 1,600 customers did not participate last year,” Soman notes, “so we continuously have new customers take part.”
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