Industry Alcoholic beverage Products Beer Headquarters Minneapolis | Founder Jacquie Berglund Website Finnegans.org Founded 2000 | |
Annie cooke finnegans beer
FINNEGANS is a beer brewed in Minnesota, and is the fifth largest beer brand. FINNEGANS is a completely non-profit company. All proceeds are donated to the The FINNEGANS Community Fund where one of the main focuses is to feed the hungry. Their mission statement is, "Turning beer into food."
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FINNEGANS bottles are currently brewed at Summit Brewing Company in St. Paul, Minnesota, and has been through a partnership since 2003.
History
In 1997, Jacquie Berglund (who would later become founder and CEO) moved back to Minnesota and her friend Kieran Folliard (founder of 2 Gingers Irish Whiskey and Kieren's Irish Pub in Minneapolis, Minnesota) offered her a job as the director of marketing. While working with Folliard, she got the idea that it would be wonderful if they were able to sell beer and use the money from it for a worthy cause. Folliard sold Berglund his part of what at the time was called "Kieran’s Irish Potato Ale" for $1, this would eventually become Finnigans.
The IRS, however, disagreed that a beer company could be a non-profit as their primary work involved no charity. So Berglund set up FINNEGANS the beer company, which donated all profits to the FINNEGANS Community Fund. She was the only employee of FINNEGANS, up until 2009. Although she did have the assistance of some volunteers, and also did quite a bit of volunteering on her own.
While FINNEGANS is an independent brewery, the beer is contracted with Summit and crafted by brewer Damian McConn. In 2014, a Kickstarter campaign was launched to create the Dead Irish Poet. This beer received 260 donations to help bring it to reality and add a third option to FINNEGANS drinkers.
FINNEGANS now distributes to Minnesota, North & South Dakota, Montana, Iowa, and Wisconsin; where all profits are used locally within the area where the beer was purchased to alleviate hunger.
Reverse Food Truck
In March 2014, FINNEGANS launched the Reverse Food Truck (RFT). The idea was brought to FINNEGANS by their advertising agency, Martin Williams. The idea capitalized on the popularity of food trucks and turned the concept upside down. Instead of selling food, the truck collects food and distributes it to those in need via their established food shelf network. The idea won an effie award and inspired many more trucks around the world. FINNEGANS also provides other organizations with a toolkit of how to start their own RFT.
FINNEGANS Community Fund
The FINNEGANS Community fund's mission is to "Create sustainable change for those affected by the cycle of poverty through profits from FINNEGANS Irish Amber and other innovative products and events." One of the unique traits of this group is that everything remains local; Local sales of beer create revenue which is then used to purchase food from local farmers to deliver to local food shelves. In 2012, profits from Finnigans beer purchased 140,000 pounds of local produce.