A Nashville-based company is helping brewers tap into the future of the industry.
Volunteer Botanicals launched the Beverage Accelerator Program this spring to help brewers and distillers formulate, create and market new functional beverages and expand their offerings.
“Coming out of Covid, the change in consumer thoughts about health and wellness, people began to drink less. People were looking for healthier options, and people were looking for different sorts of intoxicants,” Jason Pickle, president and co-founder of Volunteer Botanicals, told the Business Journal. “These beverages allowed for consumers that may not be THC savvy or friendly to touch it in a very controlled meter dose and understand what the effects would be.”
Three Middle Tennessee State University alums founded Volunteer Botanicals in 2018, following the passing of the Farm Bill, using a team of cannabinoid experts, scientists, pharmacists and doctors and in-house technology to convert active pharmaceutical ingredients, and later plant ingredients, into a consumer-friendly format like powders, capsules and tablets.
They quickly realized the same technique could be used to develop microemulsion ingredients for a variety of botanical beverages. Last year, for the first time in nearly two decades, more breweries closed than opened nationwide, according to the Brewers Association 2024 report, while the non-alcoholic beverage sector boomed.
The Beverage Accelerator program takes a brewer or distiller’s idea to distribution in 90 days, as Volunteer Botanicals leads them through product development, formulation and batching, ingredient sourcing, co-packing, testing, distribution options and production scaling.
“It’s end to end, from idea to distribution. Wherever you need help, we would like to step in and support that,” Pickle said. “We’re seeing the most success quickly with breweries getting involved. … They can apply their creativity in making drinks into new actives, and we can … teach them about how to dose it, how to ensure certain milligrams are going into each can. … We can step in as a science team and help them build new beverages that increase their profit margins.”
Since Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee signed a new law earlier this year designating the ABC to govern and tax hemp-derived and cannabinoid products, Volunteer Botanicals has seen a surge in interest from alcohol companies and breweries wanting to get into the functional beverage space.
“This is an intoxicating beverage, so the ABC already deals with intoxicants. There’s now a tax structure going into place. So, the road map is actually now black and white and it’s getting built in real time,” Pickle said. “As we move through 2025 and 2026, this is only going to be concreted more into place and there’s going to be no friction and no confusion, the road map is going to be very clear. So, we see this as an incredible opportunity, especially for breweries that are struggling right now.”
This month, Volunteer Botanicals partnered with the Independent Brewers Alliance to become the preferred supplier of hemp-based cannabinoids and functional ingredients for its member businesses — a network of over 600.
“I’m a big fan of breweries. I’m a big fan of what they stand for in terms of social centers,” Pickel said. “I don’t want to lose those social centers and at no fault of their own, they’re closing every day. I’ve had multiple breweries say, ‘you saved my company,’ and that’s very satisfying. I’m not saving their company because they’re not making beer, I’m saving their company because this process that we’re bringing to the facility is fast … the efficiency is way better. The margins are way better.”