For Jacquie Berglund, brewing beer is more than a business. It’s a form of community activism.
Berglund is the CEO, founder and ‘Rambunctious Social Entrepreneur’ of Finnegans, a Minneapolis-based craft beer company that puts 100 percent of its profits toward the purchase of fresh, locally grown produce, which is then donated to food pantries across the Midwest.
Earlier this year, the company announced plans to expand to the Hawkeye State, where it now serves Irish Amber and seasonal Blonde Ale to the thirsty, and produce to the hungry in partnership with the Food Bank of Iowa.
“It makes sense to focus on the Midwest and now Iowa, because we’re agricultural based,” said Berglund, who spoke at Entrefest—Iowa’s entrepreneurship conference that takes place in downtown Iowa City from May 20-22. But more than that, the social entrepreneur notes that she feels a certain connection with Iowans.
“There is this like-minded openness,” she said. “It feels like a great fit.”
That’s a big change from roughly 30 years ago, when Berglund was still searching for a “great fit” when it came to her career. A Twin Cities native, the entrepreneur moved to France in 1990 to pursue a masters in international relations.
Once there, she accepted a position with the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development, helping Russian government officials establish market economies. While Berglund had anticipated it would be her dream job, the reality was far different. While there, however, she observed that much of the change going on was happening at the grassroots level, which is when she began to explore potential paths as an entrepreneur.
But it wouldn’t be until she moved back to the Twin Cities in 1997 that Berglund would find her calling. As fate would have it, an old friend, Kieran Folliard, was opening a group of Irish pubs and wanted Berglund on board as director of marketing. It was from that partnership that Finnegan’s was born.
Originally dubbed Kieran’s Irish Ale, the brand originated after Berglund took a trip to Washington D.C. and heard a speech given by Billy Shore—the founder of an anti-hunger group. “He was the first person I heard talk about having a for-profit company fund non-profit activities,” she explained. “I was sitting there listening to him, and I thought, ‘That’s the smartest thing I’ve ever heard!’ It was like my hair was on fire.”
So Berglund took her enthusiasm back to Minneapolis and pitched a radical idea to Folliard: What if they created their own beer, rolled it out in their pubs and gave the profits back to the community?
Folliard took the bait, and the beer became a popular local brew. But Berglund was convinced they could do better. “I thought, ‘If we really want to make a difference, we need to have this in every pub in Minnesota,’” she said.
Recognizing Berglund’s passion for the project, Folliard offered to sell his share of the beer business for a dollar, so she could pursue her penchant for social entrepreneurship full time. Berglund hasn’t looked back since. She promptly changed the name of the beer to Finnegans in order to more effectively market to a wide swathe of restaurants and pubs and set about the monumental task of selling her product.
“I really wasn’t as scared as I should have been,” she admitted. “I was too dumb to know better. Instead I thought, ‘This is going to be fun. It’s going to be great.’ I was blissfully ignorant of all the challenges.”
Many of those challenges came in the form of rejection. “Fifteen years ago, the craft beer thing wasn’t even happening” Berglund explained. “Nobody even knew what a social entrepreneur was. So when I would walk in and talk to a beer distributer [and explain I donated 100 percent of my profits], they would look at me like I had four heads. Also, I was a woman, and there weren’t many women in the industry at that time.”
When Berglund was starting out as a woman in the craft beer industry—then and now, a male-dominated field—she says she did her best to ignore the obstacles, but admits there were definitely times when she was treated disrespectfully and encountered inappropriate comments.
“I’ve grown a lot thicker skin than when I started. I used to feel bad and go get in my car and cry. But I do that a lot less now. Thankfully!” Berglund chuckled. “Not everybody is going to like you, you know? You have to be true to thyself.”
Berglund continues to credit much of her success to her attitude. “I have a ton of enthusiasm and positivity. It takes a lot of that kind of stuff to keep you going on the dark days.”
“I think we sometimes get into thinking as a victim, which I’ve always tried to avoid,” she said. “I take gender out of the equation. I just tell myself, ‘I’ve got to compete with everyone else. I’ve got to be better.’”
Through the many challenges, Berglund has persisted, aided by the help of volunteers and mentors. Today, the company has grown from just Berglund to a team of six staff members, who made it possible for Finnegans to donate 81,000 pounds of produce last year across all of the four states where their beer was sold: Minnesota, South Dakota, North Dakota and Wisconsin.
This year, Berglund expects to sell 10,000 barrels of beer, or 137,800 cases, all profits of which will go to purchase organic produce at market rates from community supported farms. Her business model is one that she calls both scalable and sustainable: Profits created locally end up directly in the hands of local growers, whose produce then makes its way onto local food pantry shelves.
“I totally believe that we can make profit and do good,” she said.
This article was originally published in Little Village issue 177
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