A Wichita-based co-manufacturer of shelf-stable beverages such as cold brew coffee and lattes has also earned a spot on the esteemed Inc. 5000 list.
Started in Wichita in 2018 by local entrepreneur Dan McDonald, Bev-Hub landed at No. 494 on the list of the 5,000 fastest-growing, privately held companies in the U.S. for its 1,187% revenue growth between 2019 and 2022.
"It really kind of validates what we've been doing and the hard push that we've had to grow as a company," McDonald said of the recognition. "There's a need for our business. And with the growth that we've had, we're really going to be able to capitalize on doing that and continuing to grow and push forward from here."
Bev-Hub joins two other Wichita companies on the Inc. 5000 list, which is based on percentage revenue growth between the three-year period between 2019 and 2022. Representing Wichita on the list is The Aegis Group, an insurance brokerage firm, at No. 3,425, and Walton's, which ships meat packaging supplies and other products, at No. 3,862. Broadband service provider IdeaTek, which is based out of Buhler but does work in the Wichita area, also landed 2,022nd.
In order to qualify for the Inc. list, companies must have been founded and generating revenue by March 31, 2019. They must be U.S.-based, privately held, for-profit, and independent — not subsidiaries or divisions of other companies — as of Dec. 31, 2022. The minimum revenue required for 2019 is $100,000; the minimum for 2022 is $2 million.
McDonald is well-known in the Wichita startup community for his other coffee-focused company, Nitro Joe's, which he started in 2015.
From that venture, McDonald said he found there was a need in the industry for canning and packaging, so he started doing it himself through Bev-Hub.
"It didn't take me too long to figure out that I was better at packaging stuff than I am trying to sell products into a store," he said, laughing, "and so I just put all of our focus towards Bev-Hub."
Nitro Joe's is still around; it's mostly utilized for private label brands, but McDonald said a handful of Wichita restaurants carry kegs of the nitrogen-infused coffee, as well.
Bev-Hub offers co-packing for coffee products from both startups and established national brands, with Kansas operations in Wichita and Manhattan.
In both facilities, the company will process, can and package a customer's product.
In Wichita, Bev-Hub operates what's called a "pilot plant" that employs about 30 people at a 25,000 square-foot facility in south Wichita designed for small orders for startup companies.
"In fact, Wichita is a very important facility," McDonald said. "... We do a lot of testing for different beverage companies out of that facility. And then once they prove that the beverage is a good beverage for market or they want to take it to market, then they'll typically send that to us to produce in larger volumes at our Manhattan facility."
One big driver for Bev-Hub's growth is that there's a shortage in the industry for co-packaging plants that specialize in shelf-stable products, especially the increasingly popular canned coffee.
"There's a lot of new companies coming into the market, there's been a real shortage to fill them, and so we've been really blessed with that," McDonald said.
McDonald said Bev-Hub has set records in the U.S. for how fast the facility became safe quality food certified — a necessary criteria for brands to get their products on the shelves at big-box retailers such as Dillons, Whole Foods or Sam's Club.
"So that helped a lot, too," he said of the SQF certification.
While the Inc. 5000 appearance is a sign of Bev-Hub's boom over the last few years, McDonald said sustained growth — and expansion — are on the horizon.
"We'll definitely be growing there in Wichita — our square footage and our capabilities there — as time goes on," he said. "I don't know the timeline on that, but we'll definitely be growing out there."
