AFBev.ca Launches New Line-up and Flat Rate Shipping

Once upon a time Navin Schaduangrat, the founder of AFBev.ca, had starry-eyed dreams of opening a brewery. As a very social Vancouver-ite, Navin loved the craft beer scene but was starting to realize that going out and socializing three or four nights a week was going to catch up to him. His interest in alcohol-free products and beer was tweaked when a friend forwarded him an article about athletes using alcohol-free beer as a recovery drink. It blew him away. 

“After bringing a 6-pack of Heineken 0.0 to a party and enjoying 5 of them without the hangover, I realized wow! You can still have the social moment with a beer in your hand,” Schaduangrat explained to Some Good Clean Fun over a cross-country Zoom call. 

Although he enjoyed the taste, he realized that good alcohol-free products were not widely available. His ensuing deep dive into the alcohol-free market around the world demonstrated that Canada was years behind the UK and Australia when it came to quality, availability and taste. 

“I knew we were on to something, but the product here hadn’t followed,” he said. “I also knew that Canadians needed access to the products that were already available and successful overseas.”

Schaduangrat’s determination to find a solution for Canadians included thoughts of opening up an alcohol-free brewery, but the urgency of the situation meant this would take too long to develop. 

“I talked to friends and people in my network and it demonstrated more people than expected were interested in lowering their alcohol consumption without losing the social aspect,” he explained. 

This led to the creation of AFBev.ca, an alcohol-free marketplace that launched during the global pandemic with a low-barrier strategy to help supply existing Canadian alcohol-free products to west coast drinkers. 

Over the past year, the alcohol-free market has exploded and although AFBev.ca is new on the scene, Navin already has plans for extensive growth. 

“The market validated itself within the first three weeks, when we saw more interest than we had anticipated,” he explained. “I’ve spent the last few months thinking about how to scale and we’ve got a really good plan in place.”

Since Navin is a beer lover, the new products launching this week are mainly in the alcohol-free craft beer category, but there are plans to expand the spirits, wine and RTD categories. 

Opening an AFBev.ca Ontario fulfillment centre has been put on hold because of the pandemic, so eastern and central Canadian shoppers have the benefit of flat rate shipping across Canada for the short-term. 

Schaduangrat still has plans to one day brew his own AF special, potentially with a brewery partner, and is excited to see how the alcohol-free market will continue to grow in the future.

In the meantime, Some Good Clean Fun will be sipping on the Punk AF and Hazy AF from Brew Dog -  two award-winning alcohol-free beers that just dropped on the store and are not available anywhere else in Canada right now. 

Cheers and happy shopping!