Beer Marketer's Insights
Anchor Brewing will indeed live to see another day. Tho it'll be under the stewardship of a rather unexpected acquirer. Hamdi Ulukaya, the billionaire behind the Chobani yogurt brand, announced today that his family office is buying all of Anchor's assets for an undisclosed price, as sibling pub Craft Brew News reported earlier this afternoon. That includes the recipes, the brewery and the valuable downtown San Francisco real estate, marking the start of a new chapter for the beloved but beleaguered brand.
There's been a lotta industry chatter about Boston Beer potentially being for sale lately. But the latest chatter is far more specific and published in the Wall Street Journal. "Boston Beer in Talks to Sell Itself to Jim Beam Owner Suntory," WSJ headlined. Article sez cos are in "early talks," citing "people familiar with the matter," and acknowledging that "it is still possible the talks won't result in a transaction, or that another suitor could emerge." While current market cap is listed at ~$3 bil, deal "would likely include a premium to that."
No surprise here, AB and Tilray each filed memorandums and separate declarations to refute lawsuit brought forward by exporter of former CBA brands, CraftCanTravel, and deny co's sought-after preliminary injunction.
It was another rough set of scans for both total beer and craft in the latest 4 wks ended May 19. Total beer $$ dipped 1.4% for latest 4 wks in Circana multi-outlet + convenience data, while craft $$ fell -5.5%, shedding 0.4 share to 9.7. Year-to-date, total beer $$ down 0.5% with craft $$ off about 3%. Tho recall, craft trends don't include non-alc sales in Circana; including those brands would cut declines significantly. (Editor's Note: craft category volume appears skewed in latest batch of Circana scans, so we'll focus on $$ only in this writeup.)
Anchor Brewing will indeed live to see another day. Tho it'll be under the stewardship of a rather unexpected acquirer. Hamdi Ulukaya, the billionaire behind the Chobani yogurt brand, announced today that his family office is buying all of Anchor's assets for an undisclosed price. That includes the recipe, the brewery and the valuable downtown San Francisco real estate, marking the start of a new chapter for the beloved but beleaguered brand.
PRESS CLIPS: Mio Goes 'Maximalist' in Rebrand as Younger Users Flock Aboard, Fast Company Reports
Mio has gone maximalist in its branding, switching to sanserif font for brand name and bold-colored graphic scheme as it seeks to claim louder share of voice in water enhancer where TikTok has proved to be kingmaker via hashtags like #WaterTok, #beveragegirlie and #beveragegoblin, not to mention close-knit community of Stanley refillable cup adorers. As part of revamp, the Kraft Heinz-owned brand "has also adopted a new, TikTok-ified marketing strategy that captures younger consumers by playing into online trends and hashtags," as Fast Company outlined recently.
Tho he'd gotten a few years in at Coca-Cola before that, Michael Fedele is first to say how formative his decade-long run at Body Armor was, working as part of cohesive team managed by Mike Repole and Lance Collins before brand's outsize exit to Coke. (Mike held key marketing role there.)
At time David Knight took CEO job 9 months ago, Jones Soda was trading on pink sheets at barely above a dime, the result of its years-long struggle to get to point of both meaningful growth and profitability. But for past coupla weeks, it's been at around 40¢ following quarterly earnings call on May 14 in which former Pepsi exec unveiled aggressive plan to pursue expansion opportunities in broad range of untapped recipes, packages and new segments that would move Jones well beyond its identity as a craft soda packed in 12-oz glass bottles (BBI, May 15). True, the $40 mil market cap that JSDA currently commands is a fraction of the value the co commanded during the 90s, when it was almost a proto-meme stock, but it marks a rare shot of investor confidence in Seattle-based co. So we reached out to Knight to dig a bit deeper into radical new strategy that includes first serious foray into zero-calorie entries, sweeping packing revamp, big push on D9 hemp bevs and preparation for entry into as many as 5 adjacent categories.
The complete 2024 Beer Industry Update is almost here. Order your copy of this year's edition now to save $150 and be among the first to receive this year's full e-book and companion excel files when they become available at the end of this week.
Throwback Thursday
This week in 1999, consultant Andy Christon told INSIGHTS' Consolidation Conf he couldn't find a "clear correlation" between "sheer size of a wholesaler and profitability." But he found a connection between mkt share and profits. Profit measure was EBITDA as a percentage of net sales. "High performers" had EBITDA over 8% of net sales. Among high performers there were 10 AB distribs, 2 Miller, 1 Coors. Highest performer was AB distrib who made 16% cash profits after all expenses. "Not fiction," assured Andy. He felt distribs with EBITDA under 4% should think about selling. He wasn't sure of a perfect volume threshold, as Andy pointed out in some western rural mkts, "you can make a nice living" on half-mil cases and "there's nobody else around that can come in and do it better."