Anheuser-Busch InBev will merge its High End and Brewers Collective sales teams, chief commercial officer Kyle Norrington announced to wholesalers today.
“In order to strengthen our execution and further fuel our momentum within the premium and super premium segments in particular, we’re excited to share that we are merging our High End sales team together with our Brewers Collective sales team so that moving forward we will have one fully integrated team partnering with all of you to drive the growth of our High End portfolio,” Norrington wrote.
The combination is effective today, and Norrington told wholesalers their “primary point of contact will not change,” and no jobs will be eliminated as a result of the consolidation.
“The combining of these two teams will further simplify our internal sales organization and result in more efficient execution in the market,” he wrote.
A-B has promoted Nathan Muszczynski to VP of Brewers Collective/High End sales. He will report to Brewers Collective president Andy Thomas, who was promoted to that role in December. High End VP Dusan Vujovic will help integrate the teams before shifting to a new role that will be announced later.
High End brands include the company’s imported offerings (Stella Artois, Estrella Jalisco, Spaten, Hoegaarden and Leffe) and the organic offerings in the Michelob Ultra family (Ultra Pure Gold, Ultra Lime Cactus and Ultra Amber Max).
The Brewers Collective is A-B’s craft division, which includes both acquired and developed brands (10 Barrel, Appalachian Mountain Brewery, Blue Point, Breckenridge Brewery, Cisco, Devils Backbone, Elysian, Four Peaks, Golden Road, Goose Island, Karbach, Kona, Omission, Platform, Red Hook, Square Mile Cider, Veza Sur, Virtue Cider, Wicked Weed, Widmer Brothers, and Wynwood).
Still facing tough pandemic-driven comps, A-B’s off-premise dollar sales declined -9.6%, to $1.032 billion year-to-date through January 23, compared to the same period last year, according to market research firm IRI. Recall that on-premise closures didn’t take hold until March 2020, so scan data for the early months of 2021 was still compared to pre-pandemic times.
Craft Brew Alliance (Appalachian Mountain Brewery, Cisco, Kona, Omission, Red Hook, Square Mile Cider, Widmer Brothers, and Wynwood) remains separate in IRI data, despite A-B’s 2020 acquisition of the remaining share of the craft brewery platform it did not own. Off-premise dollar sales of CBA’s portfolio fared better than the overall A-B portfolio, declining -3.7%, to $9.1 million, for the first three weeks of 2022, according to IRI.