From Peanuts to £10m in Two Years! Uni Mates Create Innovative Beer Brand Shaking Up the Drinks & Snacks Industry

Two best mates have turned their passion for beer and bar snacks into a hugely successful business, driving sustainability into the drinks market and generating a whopping £10million in revenue in just two years.

Stefan White, 27, and Tom Renshaw, 26, are founders of Bier Company – an online shop stocking the finest independent craft beers from breweries across the UK, as well as new and exclusive brews, paired with their signature own-brand Bier Nuts and Bier Crisps.

Bier Company Founders Tom Renshaw and Stefan White

The thriving company also sells gifting products, with sales and popularity skyrocketing in 2020 following the release of its Father’s Day ‘Super Dad’ gift box – jam-packed with 24 quality craft beers, Bier snacks, branded cartoon character socks, beer mats, and a special glass to mark the occasion.

The brand’s story begins under the company’s former moniker Bier Nuts, when a then 23 and 22-year-old Stefan and Tom took a trip to Bulgaria and experienced beer snacks that blew them away.

The friends, who were still at university at the time, were inspired to bring the European-style beer snack flavour to the UK market.

With the pair deciding on a commitment to sustainable ‘can’ packaging and becoming the first snack in Europe to do so, production was a challenge, but the end product was an instant hit with the UK public.

Stefan explains, “Tom and I met at Queen Mary, University of London, and ended up sharing a flat.

“We went to Bulgaria for a holiday and were at a pub drinking beer when we first tasted these amazing nuts. We just turned and said to each other ‘these are incredible’. They were like nothing we had ever tasted before, and in that moment we knew we had to show the UK what they were missing out on.

“It was the start of a journey we couldn’t have imagined in our wildest dreams.”

Armed with just a £7k investment from friends and family on Kickstarter, Tom and Stefan started pounding the pavements to pitch their tasty treats to pubs across the country, eventually managing to secure deals with over 2000 pubs to stock them. Their determination to succeed saw Tom go through two pairs of shoes and Stefan lose 20kg in weight, with the pair working in hospitality jobs on the side to keep them afloat.

With flavours like Classic, Masala Curry, and Jalapeno, and paired with their colourful infamous nut cartoon characters on the sustainable cans, Bier Nuts was an immediate hit with beer-lovers across the UK.