• 📊 Bump: ‘Retailers Are Going to Change'
• 🤝 Sheehan Strikes Deal to ‘Consolidate Ownership'
• 👎 Ultra Right Beer Gets F Rating from BBB
• ⚓️ Anchor SF Cooperative Decides Not to Bid
• 📈 Bev-Alc Ends Dry January Flat YoY
• 🍺 Tsingtao 0.0 Hits The U.S. Market
• 🧞‍♂️ Bud Light Super Bowl Ad Revealed

Retailers will have an increased “intense scrutiny” of new product launches and bev-alc shelf sets in 2024, according to Bump Williams in his monthly report for Bump Williams Consulting (BWC). 

The past few years of constant innovation and fast trends, along with the threat of consumer price sensitivity and shifts in shelf reset periods, are all contributing to what Williams expects will be a significant shift in 2024. 

Williams wrote: “Retailers are going to change the way of the bev-alc world in 2024.”

For suppliers to best tackle changes, Williams suggested looking beyond national trends and even total bev-alc, to overall beverage and divisional/regional trends. 

Total beverage dollar sales increased +5.1% year-over-year (YoY) in 2023, according to NIQ off-premise data (total U.S. xAOC + convenience) for the 52 weeks ending December 30. 

Williams wrote: “This sounds like good news as consumption ticked up in total, prices went up and consumer purchase behavior changed the mix of what went in the market basket. But we know that not all beverages are created equal in growth and share.” 

Beer – including flavored malt beverage (FMB), hard cider and hard seltzer – held its position as the No. 1 beverage by dollar sales, with 23.9% share of total beverage dollar sales. Wine was No. 4 (7.2% share), after soft drinks (20.1%) and energy drinks (10.3%). Spirits were No. 6 (6.1% share), behind water (7%). 

Williams wrote: “A lot of this has to do with distribution/availability in the off-premise world, but it also has to do with consumer loyalty, purchase frequency and volume/shopping occasion.”

Both beer and wine lost a “significant amount of share” in 2023, according to Williams – -0.6 and -0.3 share points, respectively – the largest share losses within total beverage. Spirits were flat, as “consumers shifted from buying 1.75 L bottles to smaller packages of RTD [ready-to-drink] spirits.”

With beer’s share losses, “big ACV retailers” are replacing beer shelf space and displays with “other faster-selling beverage categories,” such as soft drinks (+0.7 share points) and energy drinks (+0.6 share points), Williams warned. 

Williams wrote: “That’s NOT good for growing the business and hence the importance of enhanced service levels to remain in-stock without displays to serve as in-store inventory.”

Insiders can read more, including beer and spirits-based ready-to-drink cocktail (RTD) trends by regional divisions.

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The three-year legal battle between Sheehan family members appears to be coming to a resolution as a deal to “consolidate ownership” of the multi-state distributor under four of Gerald “Jerry” Sheehan’s sons has been reached.

A joint filing in the Superior Court of Massachusetts’ Suffolk County last week indicated that the Sheehan family had reached an “Equity Interest Purchase Agreement” (EIPA) that will settle the litigation upon the closing of the sale of the business.

In a statement shared with Brewbound, Sheehan Family Companies confirmed that a sale process was underway that would see Timothy, John, Christopher and Matthew Sheehan acquire the business from “other Sheehan family members, who do not wish to continue in the business.”

“This agreement will ensure that one of the premier beverage distributors in the country remains a family-owned enterprise,” the company said.

The transaction is expected to close in Q2 2024, although the company noted “a number of conditions still must be met to complete the agreement.” 

Family patriarch Jerry Sheehan is expected to retire once the deal is done.

Beer Marketer’s Insights, which first reported the news, said operations in Massachusetts (Craft Massachusetts, Seaboard Products, L. Knife & Son), New York (Craft New York, Union Beer, Tri-Valley Beverage, TJ Sheehan Distributing), Wisconsin (Beechwood Sales & Service) and Virginia (Specialty Beverage) are included in the transaction. Craft Connecticut and Beer House of Kentucky are carved out of the deal.

The lawsuit – filed on December 21, 2020, by Tim Sheehan and George L. Cushing, a trustee representing trusts for Tim and his brother John Sheehan (who is not personally a plaintiff in the case) – alleged that Jerry and Maureen, the patriarch and matriarch of the Sheehan family, misappropriated company funds and violated their fiduciary duties.

Should the sale close, the lawsuit would be dismissed with prejudice. 

Brewbound Insiders can read more about the complexity of the deal and Sheehan’s offloading of distribution of branches during the legal battle.

More than 100 consumers have filed complaints against the conservative beer brand Ultra Right Beer and founder Seth Weathers, claiming they ordered and paid for beer that never arrived. 

Ultra Right Beer was started in April, following the boycott of Anheuser-Busch InBev (A-B) and its Bud Light brand, after an influencer ad with Dylan Mulvaney, a transgender woman. The brand marketed itself as a “100% Woke Free American Beer” available direct-to-consumer (DTC). The company later launched limited-edition versions of the light beer with former President Donald Trump’s mugshot on the cans, following Trump’s August arrest. 

As of press time, 128 individuals have filed complaints with the Better Business Bureau (BBB), resulting in a F resting from the BBB. The first complaints began in July, with dozens more consumers filing in the past month. The company has allegedly failed to respond to 123 of the complaints filed, according to the BBB. 

One complaint from January 15 reads: “I made an online order from this company back on October 2, 2023. They have yet to fulfill my order, return my calls/voicemails, emails and fail to respond to issuing me a FULL REFUND for this fraudlent [sic] transaction which they clearly never intended on delivering.”

In another complaint, dated January 12, a consumer claims to have paid $37.26 for one 6-pack of Ultra Right Beer on October 2. They allegedly received a tracking number on December 14, but were notified on January 9 that shipments were still delayed. 

Brewbound discussed the launch of Ultra Right Beer and the risk of shipment delays on the Brewbound Podcast in April. The conversation, including details on a brief conversation with Weathers, can be listened to in the link above (starting at the 13:47 mark).

The winner of the Anchor Brewing auction was scheduled to be selected at the end of January, but there is still no word yet on who has come out on top. 

However, the group of former Anchor employees jockeying for ownership has pulled out, deciding not to place a bid, according to a post on Instagram.

The Anchor SF Cooperative Team wrote: “We have been hard at work trying to navigate through the Anchor Brewing Company sale process and have decided not to put in our bid because of the competing bid amounts.”

The group is not giving up entirely, and has been “working diligently to create relationships with other bidders to discuss how our experience running the brewery, combined with all the business planning and relationship building we have done over the past 6 months, can be valuable to them if they are the successful bidder,” as well as ways the brewery could operate as a co-operative. 

They continued: “We are still waiting on some key events to understand where exactly we stand on these negotiations. After the bid results have been publicized, we will be determining the viability of each of these options and will let you know our positions.” 

The cooperative had been partially funding its bid with a WeFunder campaign. Should the group’s plans for a co-op fail, or if “the path forward does not include the need for investors,” funds will be returned to donors, according to the post.

Total bev-alc finished the first month of 2024 with off-premise dollar sales nearly flat (-0.2%) versus 2023, according to Circana’s Scott Scanlon in the market research firm’s weekly report. 

Bev-alc dollar sales were up +2% week-over-week (WoW) for the week ending January 28. Dollar sales for the final full week were “slightly above” that of the first week (ending January 7), while volume increased +2.5% over the course of the month, according to Scanlon. However, total bev-alc volume was down -1.9% year-over-year (YoY). 

Non-alcoholic (NA) finished Dry January with dollar sales up +32% YoY and volume up +28%, “albeit off [a] low base,” Scanlon wrote. Over the last 52 weeks, NA beer dollar sales have increased +29.2%, while volume has increased +20.2%. 

Total beer ended its month of mainly YoY declines with flat dollar sales, and a -1.7% YoY decline in volume. Spirits ended the month in the green (dollar sales +3.7%, volume +4.7%), while wine recorded the largest declines (dollar sales -3.4%, volume -6.4%).

“I never would have seen that coming,” Mary Guiver, Whole Foods’ principal category merchant for beer, told The Wall Street Journal on non-alcoholic beer maker Athletic Brewing becoming the top-selling beer category offering. 

Also of note from the front page feature story, Athletic’s sales exceed $90 million in 2023, while producing 250,000 barrels of beer.

Nostalgia continues to factor into 2024 Super Bowl ads. 

A-B’s 2024 Bud Light ad has a throwback feel, with the debut of the “Bud Light Genie,” who grants dozens of wishes. 

The ad features cameos from Post Malone, Peyton Manning and UFC boss Dana White. 

Watch it here.

Chinese beer import brand Tsingtao is putting its name in the non-alc (NA) ring.

The company has launched Tsingtao 0.0, a NA version of its flagship Tsingtao Premium Lager. The launch comes after a year of U.S. expansion for Tsingtao, through Paulaner USA. 

Paulaner USA president and CEO Steve Hauser said in a press release: “The demand for Tsingtao Premium Lager has experienced tremendous growth over the past two years and that trend is projected to continue beyond the New Year. With the launch of Tsingtao 0.0, we are tapping into consumers who are reaching for non-alcoholic drinks in their bid to lower their caloric intake. Tsingtao 0.0 provides a great tasting experience, and we’re confident that consumers will enjoy it.”

Import brands continue to increase their investment in the U.S. NA market, including Japanese import brand Asahi, which launched its own NA in the U.S. in 2022 and recently invested in NA retailer The Zero Proof.