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.
“We are excited to add Quality Beverage to our company and to welcome their talented team,” principals Carl and Carmine Martignetti said in the release. “We have known the Wetterau family for three decades and have admired the values and commitments they have practiced every day in their company with employees, customers, and suppliers.
“We are committed to building upon that legacy and to providing new growth opportunities for Quality and all those associated with it,” they continued. “We look forward to partnering with Anheuser-Busch and other valued suppliers and to growing our mutual business together.”
Taunton, Massachusetts-headquartered Quality Beverage, which operates distribution facilities in Auburn and Chicopee, sells more than 400 brands including the Anheuser-Busch InBev (A-B) portfolio, as well as national and regional craft brands such as New Belgium, Shiner, Sierra Nevada, Harpoon, SweetWater and Ballast Point.
Quality’s territory spans the southern half of Western and Central Massachusetts and continues south along the Rhode Island border. In total, Quality serves 3,200 accounts across 137 towns with a combined population of 2.3 million people, according to its website.
Two acquisitions in the last decade (Williams Distributing in 2019 and Consolidated Beverage in 2013) made Quality the largest A-B distributor in Massachusetts, with 9.7 million case equivalents in volume, then-CEO Conrad Wetterau told Brewbound in 2019.
Martignetti is the sixth-largest wine and spirits distributor in the U.S. and the largest in New England, where it operates in every state except Connecticut.
Until recently, Quality also sold Constellation Brands’ portfolio of popular Mexican imports Modelo, Corona and Pacifico. However, Constellation refused to accept Martignetti as a successor wholesaler, which threw a wrench into Quality’s acquisition.
Quality filed a lawsuit against the bev-alc giant in October 2023 and alleged it interfered with the sale to Martignetti. Without the Constellation portfolio, Quality’s sale price would be cut by $34 million, the wholesaler claimed. With the inclusion of Constellation products, Martignetti had agreed to acquire Quality’s three warehouses and its book of 400-plus brands for $191,790,248, according to the lawsuit.
During negotiations, Constellation told Quality it would approve a sale to the two Bay State distributors (Randolph-based Burke Distributing and Auburn-based Atlas Distributing) in Constellation’s network that aren’t aligned with A-B.
Those moves did indeed take place, a Constellation spokesperson told Brewbound. Burke announced on its website that it became the exclusive distributor of Constellation products on January 2 for Bristol County in southeastern Massachusetts, as well three cities in neighboring Norfolk County (Foxboro, Plainville and Wrentham).
Constellation has been shifting its brands out of A-B houses for years, particularly in California, which does not have franchise law. The company, which acquired the rights to produce and sell Grupo Modelo’s brands in 2013 for $4.75 billion due to A-B’s need to gain Department of Justice approval for its acquisition of the Mexican brewer, strongly favors the Reyes Beverage Group in markets where it operates. Those states include California, Texas, Hawaii, Illinois, Tennessee, Michigan, Indiana, Florida, South Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, and Washington, D.C.
Quality’s lawsuit against Constellation was dismissed Wednesday with joint stipulation, according to a document filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts.