News

A look back at last week’s top stories … with gifs.

Constellation Brands has raised its full-year operating income guidance for its beer brands to +7% to +8% (previously +6% to +7%), following another quarter of shipments and depletions growth, the company reported today in its Q3 earnings results.

Japanese brewing giant Asahi announced it has struck a deal to acquire Waunakee, Wisconsin-based contract brewer Octopi Brewing.

Matagrano, an independent South San Francisco-based Anheuser-Busch distributor, has inked a deal to acquire Bottomley Distributing, which services Silicon Valley and the South Bay Area.

We checked in with a data analyst, consultant and major retailer buyer on the drivers they are watching in 2024, including what investors will be looking for, where there might be white space in hot categories, and how retailers are making buying decisions.

The “misalignment” of growth strategies across the supplier, wholesaler and retailer tiers will continue to be a problem for bev-alc in 2024, according to Bump Williams in the first Bump Williams Consulting (BWC) Monthly Industry Update of the year.

Martignetti Companies has closed on its acquisition of Quality Beverage, according to a press release. Financial terms of the deal, which was announced in April 2023, were not disclosed.

Fellow beer industry journalists Kate Bernot and Christopher Shepard join the Brewbound Podcast to recall the bev-alc/non-alc crossover brand madness of 2023, craft beer’s stormy seas and a potentially grim outlook for draft beer sales.

Nearly seven months after the dissolution of its proposed merger with Cape May Brewing, Flying Fish Brewing filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy late last month. The brewery listed nearly $9.3 million owed to secured and unsecured creditors and nearly $1.3 million in assets, according to documents filed in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the district of New Jersey.

Landing in a wholesaler’s warehouse is a big win for a supplier, but it’s often just the first step in a journey that ultimately ends in a consumer’s fridge. Stone Distributing general manager Brian Fried, Breakthru Beverage California director of beer Sinead Carey and Tryon Distributing director of beer Elledge Davis shared the questions and tasks suppliers need to ask and accomplish along the way during the Brewbound Live business conference last month in Marina del Rey, California.