Tamarron Survey: Craft Brewers Outperform Larger Brewers in Partnership With Distributors; Boston Beer and A-B Take Top Spots

Wholesalers ranked Boston Beer Company and Anheuser-Busch InBev first and second in most categories in Tamarron Consulting’s annual survey of distributors’ perception of key beer industry suppliers.

Denver-based Tamarron shifted to a new five-point scale this year that asked distributors to rank their supplier partners based on how consistently they perform a function or demonstrate a skill.

“The scale drove higher scores overall because we shifted to a ‘consistency demonstrated scale,’ which we then transformed into a 5-point numerical scale,” Tamarron co-founder and president Lori Scheiffler wrote to Brewound. “The minimum target under this new system became a score of 3.76, which translates to a behavior consistency of ‘Often.’

“Our continued aim is to drive positive change through the survey, not simply scorecard performance,” she continued. “The brewers have already received their results, and we’ve heard of several that are already taking action.”

Only Boston Beer scored higher than the 3.76 target on each of the survey’s 47 questions. Boston Beer’s highest score was 4.73 on establishing and following a strategic plan. Its lowest score was 3.83 on partnering to grow the business.

A-B’s highest score was 4.71 on providing effective category and brand selling tools for field sales and distributors. Its lowest score was 3.6 on managing growth in on-premise chain and national accounts.

This year, 228 distributors participated in the survey, up 37 from 2019’s 191 respondents.

“Much of that increase was driven by a higher number of responses from ABI distributors,” Tamarron wrote.

Molson Coors had the most representation in the survey (122), while A-B had the least (77). Comstock, Michigan-headquartered Bell’s Brewery, a newcomer to this year’s survey, had the second largest distributor representation among respondents (119), followed by Boston Beer (113), Constellation Brands (110), Heineken USA (107), Mark Anthony Brands (97), New Belgium (93), Diageo (88), and Sierra Nevada (87).

Distributors scored the survey’s four craft breweries higher than their larger counterparts on partnerships, a new metric added to the survey this year.

“The partnership grades were new this year to indicate how well brewers collaborate with distributors and partner to grow the business,” Tamarron wrote. “This grade often relates more to the bigger picture and speaks to brewers’ cultures as well.”

Bell’s and Boston Beer tied for the top score in partnership; 92% of both breweries’ respondents graded the companies an A or B. New Belgium wasn’t far behind (91%), followed by Sierra Nevada (86%). Constellation Brands scored the highest among larger brewers (84%), followed by Mark Anthony (80%), A-B (76%), Diageo (73%), Molson Coors (56%) and Heineken USA (55%).

Boston Beer — maker of Samuel Adams, Angry Orchard, Twisted Tea, Truly Hard Seltzer and Dogfish Head — scored highest in relationships, which “align more with relationships with local/regional teams.”

On relationship, 95% of Boston Beer’s respondents graded the company an A or B, followed by Constellation (94%), A-B (87%), Bell’s (86%), Mark Anthony (83%), Sierra Nevada (83%), New Belgium (83%), Molson Coors (76%), Diageo (73%), and Heineken USA (62%).

Distributors rated the overall industry highly in the following areas:

  • Establishing and following a strategic plan (4.2);
  • Developing effective distributor relationships and engagement at senior levels (4.19);
  • Developing effective relationships and distributor culture alignment (4.11);
  • Building a valuable portfolio (4.08);
  • Delivering the plan (4.06);
  • Managing growth in chain/national accounts off-premise (4.03);
  • Providing effective category and brand selling tools for field sales and distributors (3.97);
  • Partnering to grow the business (3.89);
  • Managing growth in chain/national accounts on-premise (3.78).

Managing growth in on-premise chains and national accounts was a challenge for nearly all suppliers; it ranked among the bottom three scores for all suppliers except for Molson Coors.

Distributors responded that eight of the 10 suppliers shrugged at partnering with them to grow the business. That skill set did not appear in the bottom three scores for only Boston Beer and A-B.

A majority of suppliers also scored lower in “providing effective category and brand selling tools for field sales and distributors.” Distributors ranked it among the bottom three scores for Boston Beer, Mark Anthony, Heineken USA, Diageo, Constellation and New Belgium.

Overall, respondents noted that suppliers had the opportunity to improve in the following areas:

  • “Social media/digital marketing;
  • Collaboration on multiple fronts (e.g., goal setting, POS, course-correcting, etc.);
  • E-commerce;
  • Data mining and insights, especially on the local level;
  • On-premise national account execution.”

“Key themes from brewer best practices include consistency, communication, collaboration, local market presence and relationships, distributor alignment, data and insights and goal clarity,” Tamarron wrote.