This 800-pound gorilla is dominating grocery sales even more than you think. "Wal-Mart?s resounding success selling groceries is sending shock waves through a staid industry," Fortune mag just wrote about what is now #1 food retailer as well as largest US corporation of any kind. Wal-Mart "continues to spread its price dominance across the land," wrote Progressive Grocer mag. Wal-Mart sells more than 10% of groceries in US, up from 6% 6 yrs ago, according to Bear Stearns. That amounted to about $46 bil in 2001. But that?s only about 20% of Wal-Mart?s total revs which hit $220 bil in 12 mos ended Jan 31, 2002. Amazingly, Wal-Mart total revs up $100 bil in just 4 years. Similarly, Wal-Mart oper income also almost doubled from $5.7 bil to $10.7 bil in just 4 yrs. And Wal-Mart growing faster in groceries than its other bizzes. "We expect Wal-Mart to double its food sales within the next 5 years or so," wrote UBS Warburg analyst Neil Currie, who also has "reduce" ratings on two of big public supermarket chains, Safeway and Albertson?s. "Our overriding concern for conventional supermarkets is that Wal-Mart will continue to add significant numbers of supercenters and further encroach into grocery market shares," Neil added. To compete, big supermarket chains are cutting costs, closing stores, streamlining. Yet typical mkt basket at Wal-Mart is 20-30% cheaper than other stores, according to recent survey. Number of Wal-Mart supercenters has jumped from 260 to 1060 in last 5 yrs, wrote Fortune and could quadruple again. What?s it mean for beer? Wal-Mart is already AB?s #2 customer, growing rapidly. AB has a team that just services Wal-Mart hq in Bentonville, Ark. Other brewers and importers aren?t quite as focused on this burgeoning behemoth. Yet. About 1400 Wal-Mart outlets sell alc bevs. If Wal-Mart is winner in this key channel and it wins by offering lowest price, this will put pressure on distribs? margins; and brewers and distribs will need to find new ways to add value to 3-tier system.

Once again, light beer, imports and malternatives were the growth segments in the US beer biz in 2001, while shipments of regular domestic beer—at any price—-continued to erode. So did shipments of ice beers, malt liquors and no-alcohol brews. Specialty beers just held even. Growth in light beer segment slowed a bit from 4.5-6% range of recent yrs to still impressive 3% in 2001. Light beer shipments increased 2.6 mil bbls to 88.9 mil bbls, and picked up another share of overall beer market to 44. Premium-priced light beers (including Michelob Light) were about 69 mil bbls, up 2.5 mil bbls, 4%, and grabbed 34 share. In last 5 yrs, premium light beers up 16.8 mil bbls, 32%; gained 7 share.

Import beer segment slowed a bit too last yr: up 1.8 mil bbls, 9%, following double-digit gains in 3 of 4 previous years. (Gotta note: import figures below for 2000-01 tease out our guesstimate of malternatives imported from Canada; that volume included with malternatives.) Import beers reached 21.4 mil bbls and 10.6 share of the US malt bev mkt. For first time, consumers bought more imported beer in the US than popular regular brands. As recently as 96, popular regular segment outsold imports by 17 mil bbls. Since then, import beers up 8.9 mil bbls, 72% and picked up 4.1 share of US shipments. Big news in 2001: malternatives. We estimate shipments reached 4.8 mil bbls, including Zima, coolers, hard lemons and about 400,000-500,000 bbls shipped from Canada. Smirnoff Ice grabbed over 1/3 of malternative volume, Mike’s Hard another 17. Add ‘em up and growing segments--premium lights, imports and malternatives—-grabbed 47 share in 2001, up 2.6.

All figures are BMI estimates for US market only.

"Regular" beer took it on chin again in 2001. Shipments of premium regular brands declined another 1.5 mil bbls, 3.5%. That’s a slightly sharper dropoff than in 1998-2000. Looks like every big segment impacted by malternatives last yr. Since late 80s the premium regular segment lost about half of its share of US beer biz, dropping from 40 to 20.7. Popular-priced regular brands fared even worse: down 1.8 mil bbls, 8%. These brands slipped to just 10 share of US mkt, a loss of 5 share in 5 years. Look at tuff 5-yr trends for regular beer: premium biz off 7.7 mil bbls, 16%, popular-priced biz off 8.5 mil bbls, 29%. Domestic specialty market just even in 2001, following modest gains in 1999-2000 and a flat 98. (INSIGHTS previously estimated 1.6% gain.) Ice beer segment (domestic brands only) dropped 400,000 bbls, 5.4% in 2001, worst trend in yrs. Malt liquor volume dipped to 5.5 mil bbls in 2001, and was just 2.7 share of shipments. Down 4 mil bbls in 5 yrs. No-alcohol brews dropped another 60,000 bbls, 4% in 2001.

That was slightly faster than Modelo?s 5% in 2d qtr. But for 6 mos, FEMSA up about 7% compared to double-digit increase for Modelo. In court papers, Labatt USA said its projected growth rate for FEMSA brands in 2002 was 6.3%. Seems to be on target.

British papers today jumped on unusual new study that found  “substantially increased risks of all cause mortality can occur even in people drinking lower than recommended limits, and especially among younger people.”   Medical statisticians advised men under 34, women under 44 to limit consumption to 1 unit/day.  That’s less than 1 “standard” drink in US.  More details later, but gotta note alarm of Brit press: “A study published today…makes it clear that there is no such thing as a safe alcoholic drink—at least until you’re over 65.”  One headline: “’Moderate drinking’ is harmful to younger people, says study.”  And read the lead: “Men under 34 and women under 44 should drink no more than one glass of wine or half a pint of beer a day if they want to avoid an early death, research claims today.”  Ouch!

 

Big, big BATF changes in guidelines for malternative products in works. BATF investigation showed most of alc content in many malternatives comes from spirits flavoring, rather than malt base. So BATF considering a limit to 0.5% of total alc content of product that can come from flavoring. Products that don't meet new standard would "default" to classification as distilled spirits. Taxation, mktg & mkt access of malternatives could change drastically. BATF's Art Libertucci discussed guidelines yesterday in 2 conference calls. During Q&A, one listener complained proposed changes would end category. Art countered that producers could continue malternative products, just not as cheaply or easily. As always with BATF, any changes will take time: BATF will draft proposed regs Nov-Dec, then official comment period, final decision in Sep '03, and effective date 2-3 mos later. Producers could also go to court and/or legislature.

"There seem to be signs" that malternatives "are peaking," AB cfo Randy Baker told Wall St. There?s "nothing there that supports further significant growth," he added. Wow! That?s quite far from some of bold statements other industry execs made a few mos ago. Media winds appear to be shifting this week too. A lengthy Washington Post feature quoted various consumers and bartenders, who mostly dissed malternatives except in gay community and concluded "results so far show that it?s easier to imagine an overwhelming trend than to create one." A Slate.com taste test by group of 20-somethin? guys and gals was downright nasty, including many quips like "I?d rather walk the plank than drink this."

“Once again Coors blows away the earnings numbers… despite negative US volumes and lower than expected pricing in the US,” wrote JP Morgan’s John Faucher, neatly summing up Coors’ current condition.  US shipments down 0.7%, sales-to-retailers down 0.6% in qtr but if you factor in July 4th, volume about flat.  Coors Light up slightly, Keystone Light  up mid-single digits, other brands down, it told Wall St.  And Coors rev per bbl up 1% factoring out sale of branches, down 1.5% compared to last yr when it had branches.  But net income up $19 mil, 37.5%, and EPS 24 cents more than Wall St consensus.  Coors made “solid progress” reducing US costs (down 2% per bbl) and Coors biz in UK beat expectations.  Coors has paid off $180 mil of debt already, cfo Tim Wolf told analysts. Coors' total volume way up because of Carling acquisition.  

Beer consumption in Germany up 1.2% for first half of yr. If gain holds up in 2d half it will be first time since 95 beer sales grew in 3d highest per capita beer consuming country. New products, which are mix of half beer, half soda helping boost industry, up 37%, (37 mil gallons sold) Jan-Jun according to AP.

Top-5 suppliers in c-stores had 95.1 share in 2001, according to ACNielsen. AB at 62 share in c-stores, over 20 share more than in supers.  AB’s 4 top brands had over half of c-store biz: Bud Light (22 share), Bud (17.3), Nat Light (6.8) and Busch (6.1).  Miller at 18.5 share, about 2 share under supers mark.  Lite #3 brand in c-stores with 7.8 share.  Coors Light ranked just 6^th in c-stores with 6 share.  Coors had 9.2 share in c-stores (2 less than in supers).  Modelo at 2.9 share, Pabst 2.6. So all other brewers/ importers battling over less than 5% of biz!  This data also from Miller's "Volume with Profit."

Coors stock price jumped 50% since its Oct lows, from 44 to 66. That’s even tho Wall St initially reacted negatively to Carling deal (in fact, stock fell at first). Then too, Coors US biz ain’t goin’ all that great (STRs up just a little more than 1%). But analysts underestimated Carling profits. Coors also just issued $850 mil in debt at 6.4% due in 2012. That was $100 mil more than was originally planned and it was 2x oversubscribed, according to Reuters. Meanwhile, Standard & Poor’s reaffirmed Coors debt rating of BBB+ with "negative outlook" which means higher debt level increases risk. Yet S&P also "expects Coors’ financial profile will strengthen as free cash flow is used primarily for debt reduction." Turns out Coors makes lotsa $$ from joint venture in Canada, Coors Canada (50.1% owned by Coors, 49.9% owned by Molson). Coors made $29.2 mil pre-tax in 2001 from joint venture, according to Coors annual report. That’s 15% of Coors total corporate pretax income in 2001. Not bad for a licensed biz. Meanwhile, Coors lost about $2 mil on Molson USA LLC (which is 50.1% owned by Molson, 49.9% by Coors) in 2001 with big volume losses. But Molson USA reversing course: up 1.3% in 1^st qtr 2002, according to Molson. Molson ceo Dan O’Neill said he expects Molson USA to gain 2-3% in 2002, but will be "just below break-even financially." Other tidbits: Coors recorded $5.6 mil of severance costs in 3d and 4^th qtr as it eliminated 115 positions in "restructurings."