Beak & Skiff works to further diversify offerings in 2023

LAFAYETTE — Beak & Skiff Apple Orchards has a busy year planned for 2023 with a new lineup of artists for its summer concert series and a focus on its cannabis venture as the company owners work to continue to further diversify the business beyond apples.

“It was a great year for us,” Eddie Brennan, Beak & Skiff co-owner and president, says. The orchard hosted 18 national acts at concerts from May through August, with about 60,000 people attending.

“We’re really transitioning our summer experience to have Beak & Skiff as a national concert venue,” Brennan says. The orchard has already announced three acts coming to the stage in 2023 with more announcements to come.

Fall remains the core and busiest season at the apple orchard with about 300,000 people visiting within the six- to eight-week season, Brennan says. And while the orchard and all the fall festiveness that goes with it will never go away, diversification continues to be the key to success at Beak & Skiff.

Along with the 2 million gallons of sweet apple cider it presses annually, Beak & Skiff also offers its 1911 brand of hard cider, which is now available in 30 states.

“We’re trying to be leaders in the innovation side of hard cider,” Brennan says. He credits 1911 with saving the family farm and keeping Beak & Skiff in business.

In addition to producing hard cider, Beak & Skiff is one of the largest producers of cold brew coffee, which it primarily makes for private-label grocery brands. Along with the concerts at the orchard, cold brew has proven to be a good summer business, Brennan says, and helps establish Beak & Skiff as a premier beverage company.

A huge focus in 2023 will be Beak & Skiff’s cannabis venture, which began three years ago with an acre of hemp. Currently, Beak & Skiff Research, the cannabis arm of the business, grows 15 acres of hemp, is one of the first businesses licensed to grow marijuana, and one of the first licensed cannabis-processing facilities, Brennan says. It also produces THC beverages.

Brennan expects the coming year to be busy as dispensaries start coming online. “We’re excited to be on the front edge of that,” he says, adding that cannabis will further diversify the business to help keep it viable. “We never want to be 100-percent reliant on one commodity,” he notes.

Beak & Skiff, located at 2709 Lords Hill Road in LaFayette, employs 120 people full time and grows to about 350 employees during the peak fall season.