Brewery, Winery and Distillery Feasibility Study in Florida

Florida's beverage makers: bigger loans, more deals that never close

Two gauges set Florida's breweries, wineries and distilleries apart, and both pass our test of differing from the Florida all-asset book and from beverage makers nationally. The first is size. Across 108 SBA approvals from FY2017 to FY2026, the median Florida loan was $464,500, which is 1.60x the class median across the country; Florida's central half of loans ran from $217,075 up to $797,000. The second is the cancellation floor: at least 19.4% of Florida beverage approvals in the FY2017 to FY2024 years were cancelled instead of funding, and the ceiling reaches 24.7% when loans still waiting on disbursement are added.

For a borrower, that pairing tells a clear story. A plausible reading is that Florida producers seek production buildings and brewhouse or distilling equipment, win approval, and then a meaningful share stall over construction cost, equity, permits or an appraisal that comes in short. A study that settles those questions before the application is the best defense against becoming part of that floor.

Who lends, and how much weight the class carries

The class is small in Florida relative to the state's overall SBA activity. Its location quotient is 0.38x, Florida ranks 14 of 53 for beverage manufacturing loans, and the class stands 19 of 39 among Florida asset classes. Gross approvals total $82.4 million. SBA 504 carries an unusually large part of the load, 32 loans against 76 under 7(a), and one development company dominates it: Florida First Capital Finance Corporation, Inc. holds 26 loans worth $24.7 million, while Florida Business Development Corporation holds 5 worth $7.8 million. On the 7(a) side, Midwest Regional Bank holds 6 and Newtek Bank, National Association 5. No Florida beverage loan carried a franchise brand; the share is 0.00%.

Once funded, these loans have mostly held. Florida's 44 beverage loans disbursed between FY2017 and FY2021 carry a 4.5% charge-off floor, with 2.3% failing inside five years, both floors on a cohort still repaying.

Testing a Florida brewery, winery or distillery

A feasibility study here has to defend an above-class loan and survive the closing risk. Demand work should separate production volume from on-site sales, because the SBA code only says the borrower makes beer, wine or spirits; whether a Florida producer also pours for visitors or rents out an event hall is not visible in the record, so the study must model that revenue itself. Hillsborough County leads with 18 approvals, followed by Pasco at 10 and Duval at 8. Cost must come from equipment and contractor bids, not estimates, since cost overruns are a plausible source of the cancellations. Debt service coverage should rest on wholesale margins with on-site revenue tested separately, and the Florida appraisal has to stand behind a special-purpose production building on its own merits. Wineries are counted in this class alongside breweries and distilleries, so the Florida figures mix all three trades.