Can business model innovation help SMEs in the food and beverage industry to respond to crises ? ::Findings from a Swiss brewery during COVID-19

Purpose : The purpose of this paper is to show how different business model innovations (BMIs) help small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the food and beverage industry to navigate turbulent and uncertain environments such as the coronavirus economic crisis (COVID-19). Design/methodology/approach: The paper adopts an in-depth case study approach and uses a dynamic business modeling (DBM) approach to analyze how a pioneer craft brewery in Switzerland implemented innovative actions undertaken during the COVID-19 pandemic. Findings: The paper offers a novel framework describing three processes helping SMEs to implement innovations in their business model (BM) to respond in an effective way to crises, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. The first process refers to SMEs' ability to leverage readily available resources and allows SMEs to rapidly use their current knowledge to react to the changing environment amid the crisis. The second process points at SMEs' ability to transform existing resources into novel products or solutions. Finally, by mobilizing distant resources from their network, SMEs can obtain new resources and knowledge that facilitate the implementation of major changes in their BM