Five Elected to Brewers Association Board of Directors
The Brewers Association announced last week the winners of five available seats on its board of directors.
In the packaging brewer class, incoming directors include:
- Dan Kleban, co-founder and brewer of Maine Beer Company in Freeport, Maine;
- Chris Herron, co-founder and CEO of Creature Comforts Brewing Company in Athens, Georgia;
- Virginia Morrison, CEO of Second Chance Beer Company in San Diego, California.
Betty Bollas, president and co-owner of Cincinnati, Ohio-based Fibonacci Brewing Company, won the seat representing taproom breweries. Marcus Baskerville, co-founder and head brewer of San Antonio, Texas-based Weathered Souls Brewing Company, won the seat representing pub breweries.
Classes of membership are outlined in the BA’s bylaws:
- Packaging brewers are defined as breweries that sell at least 75% of their products outside their breweries;
- Pub breweries are defined as those that sell more than 25% of their products on their own premises and operate significant food services;
- Taproom breweries, which received designation as a separate class in 2018, are defined as those that sell more than 25% of their products on their own premises but do not operate food services.
Incoming directors’ terms will begin in February 2021 and last for three years. The 2021 board will include seven packaging brewer representatives, four pub brewer representatives, two taproom brewery representatives and two American Homebrewers Association representatives. According to the bylaws, the board must contain at least three but no more than 21 members.
The board will appoint at-large members for its next term during its December 3 meeting. At-large directors serve two-year terms and are limited to four consecutive years on the board. Associate members — those who belong to the BA as non-independent craft brewers, distributors, retailers, allied trades, educational institutions or individuals — can be nominated to serve as at-large directors, but cannot vote in general board elections. Only current board members can nominate at-large members for fellow board members to approve or deny.
Rhode Island Teamsters Caution Against Monopoly in Wholesaler Consolidation
East Providence, Rhode Island-based Teamsters Local 251 is alleging a monopoly in the middle tier in the Ocean State.
Mancini Beverage, the parent company of Rhode Island Distributing and C&C Distributors, has struck a deal to acquire Cranston, Rhode Island-based McLaughlin & Moran, Inc., the state’s sole Anheuser-Busch InBev distributor. C&C Distributors’ portfolio includes Molson Coors products and craft offerings from Allagash, Sierra Nevada, New Belgium and others.
“This proposed merging of all the biggest selling brands of beers under the Mancini umbrella of companies would not be good for workers, small businesses or the general public,” Teamsters Local 251 principal officer Matt Taibi said in a press release.
Both companies employ drivers from Centrex Distributors, a transportation and logistics company West Greenwich, Rhode Island, which the Teamsters represent, Taibi told Brewbound. However, McLaughlin & Moran and Mancini pay drivers at different rates, and a merger would drive wages down.
“Our McLaughlin & Moran, our Budweiser distributor, members would take on average a $7 an hour pay cut and lose their pension,” Taibi said. “You’re talking about good, family-sustaining, middle class jobs, great benefits, high standards for the state and in the industry, and it would bring them down.”
Teamsters Local 251 has asked the Rhode Island Attorney General’s office to launch an antitrust investigation into the transaction and is asking consumers to submit comments to the state’s Department of Business Regulation (DBR).
“This proposed merging of all the biggest selling brands of beers under the Mancini umbrella of companies would not be good for workers, small businesses, or the general public,” Taibi said in the release. “The shell game the Mancini’s are trying to play in order to avoid the appearance of a monopoly in the liquor industry needs to be exposed and stopped in its tracks.”
The DBR hosted a hearing on October 30 about the proposed transfer of a wholesale liquor license from McLaughlin & Moran to M&M Distributors, a new limited liability company filed with the Rhode Island Department of State on July 9 with the same principal office address as Mancini Beverage. During the hearing, retailers, labor leaders and wholesaler employees spoke and submitted comments against the transfer, Taibi said.
“All public comments were in support of Teamsters Local 251’s position that a Mancini monopoly in the beer, wine and spirits industry in Rhode Island would not be good for consumers or small businesses,” Teamsters Local 251 wrote in the release. “Only company officials commented in support of the license transfer.”
Additionally, concerns about workplace safety at Mancini Beverage were raised during the DBR hearing and the Rhode Island Department of Health announced an investigation. The Teamsters surveyed workers and found several recently tested positive for COVID-19, Taibi told Brewbound.
“There’s not a lot in the way of protocols and going by the correct procedures,” he said.
An employee at McLaughlin & Moran declined to comment, and requests to Mancini Beverage for comment were unreturned.
Drizly Drinkers Popped Bottles
Orders of sparkling wine and champagne spiked on Saturday when news networks called the presidential election for former vice president Joe Biden, according to on-demand alcohol delivery marketplace Drizly.
Sparkling wine and champagne accounted for 44% of all wine sales nationwide on Saturday, more than double their average of 21% of all wine sales on the previous four Saturdays, excluding Halloween.
In states where Drizly operates that voted for Biden (California, Oregon, Washington, Illinois, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Vermont, Maryland and Washington, D.C.), orders of bubbly accounted for 45.9% of wine sales on Saturday.
In Drizly markets that voted for President Donald Trump (Idaho, Wyoming, Oklahoma, Missouri, Louisiana, Tennessee and Kentucky), the sparkling segment made up 41.5% of all wine orders. Sparkling wine and champagne orders accounted for 40.8% of wine orders in battleground states (Texas, Colorado, Florida, Minnesota, North Carolina, Ohio, Arizona, Georgia and Pennsylvania).
On Election Day, Drizly orders were 67.6% higher than they were on the average of the previous four Tuesdays. Drizly users weren’t feeling as celebratory on Election Day as they were on Saturday when the race was called, as sparkling wine and champagne made up 19.4% of all wine orders earlier in the week.
Election Day orders spiked higher in Washington, D.C., (+132.5% compared to the average of the previous four Tuesdays) than in other major metros, such as Boston (+83.4%), New York City (+110.4%), Los Angeles (+34.9%) and Chicago (+55.1%).
Beer made up 14.6% of all Drizly sales on Election Day, which marked a decline of 0.45% compared to the average orders of the previous four Tuesdays. Within beer, hard seltzer accounted for 18.8% of sales, light lagers accounted for 13.8% of sales, cider accounted for 6.2% of sales and hazy IPAs accounted for 5.4% of sales.
Blue state Drizly users’ orders were 75.3% higher than on the average of the previous four Tuesdays on Election Day, while Drizly users in red states perhaps weren’t as thirsty, placing 33% more orders.
Wine won in blue states with 45.3% of all orders, followed by liquor (43.8%) and beer (13.9%). Liquor led in both red states (43.8%) and battleground states (45.8%), followed by wine (39.4% in red states and 35.3% in battleground states) and beer (14.2% in red states and 16.2% in battleground states).
Orchestra and Encompass Acquire Denver-Based Delivery Platform Handoff
Following the news of their merger last month, supplier and warehouse tech companies Orchestra Software and Encompass Technologies will enter the B-to-C world with the acquisition of Handoff, an alcohol delivery platform.
“Handoff has quickly become a disruptive alcohol delivery solution,” Orchestra CEO Brad Windecker and Encompass CEO Jonathan O’Neil said in a press release. “With Handoff as part of our team, we’re excited to help them expand their users nationally, while simultaneously offering our customers an end-to-end, vertically-integrated solution that will help the industry continuously make better business decisions.”
Handoff specializes in chat- and voice-operated ordering through mobile devices and smart speakers. The company is headquartered in Denver, Colorado, and operates in Boulder, Fort Collins and Colorado Springs, Colorado, and New York City.
Handoff, which will continue operating under the same name post-acquisition, can recall past orders and make recommendations. Orders can be placed with liquor stores and craft breweries participating in Handoff’s network, and delivered in 60 minutes or fewer.
“We couldn’t be happier about taking our company to the next level with the expertise and reach of our new partners Encompass and Orchestra,” Handoff co-founder and CEO Tommy Riley said in the release. “For Handoff’s users, this acquisition means our core offering will soon be available in nearly every major metropolitan area in the United States.”