In reality, the pair has worked together for over three years, with Brewdog uncovering, inventing and developing new ways to produce hand-crafted beers to the UK market, and Jumpstart making sure that this innovative creativity gets the recognition it deserves from the taxman.
In 2007, Brewdog had two employees. By 2012, it had 135 employees, 10 successful bars and 6,567 shareholders gained through an ‘anti-business’ crowdfunding model. Edinburgh-based Jumpstart’s growth trajectory is similar. Since its inception in 2008, with two employees, it has built a team of nearly 100 employees, many educated to PhD level.
What marks out Brewdog and Jumpstart is that they’re both classic ‘disruptive innovators’ who have developed a consistently efficient model that outperforms existing methods within the marketplace, and as a result has gained them a sector-beating, competitive advantage.
In Jumpstart’s case, this has meant a bold and previously unconsidered incursion into the preserve of the ‘Big Four’ accountancy practices. It set out to radically improve the tax relief submission process in ways the market simply didn’t anticipate.
Unlike financial services firms, its technical analysts are qualified to drill down into the most complex business and scientific systems and present information in a uniquely compliant form. Working with Brewdog, it has gained significant tax advantages by highlighting to HMRC the innovative aspects of a number of the brewer’s practices, including:
“Innovation is at the heart of everything Brewdog does,” said Brian Williamson, managing director of Jumpstart. “It has shaken loose from the constraints of traditional brewing and marketing, and taken well-made craft beers centre stage. But what they also reveal to the drinks industry is that the advantages to be gained from R&D tax relief are not confined to the kind of research undertaken in a sterile lab by people in white coats.
“The UK drinks industry has created systems, processes and developments that have gained it a huge international market share, and many of these are unique to the companies that created them, and therefore potentially eligible for relief. The government has put the R&D tax relief scheme in place specifically to encourage this kind of innovation and it makes irrefutable business sense to take advantage of it.”
“Both Brewdog and Jumpstart have disrupted markets which previously have been dominated by long-established giants,” said James Watt of Brewdog. “Jumpstart has gained over £43m for their clients so far, particularly in food and drink, engineering, manufacturing and software.
“The areas of our business that their technical analysts identified as being eligible for R&D relief are areas where innovation is taking place across the drinks sector. There’s really great advantage to be had here, and I anticipate that the rest of the sector will become as alive to the possibilities as we have.”
© FoodBev Media Ltd 2024