Brewbound Podcast: Top 50 Breweries, a California Craft-on-Craft Merger and a Conversation with Ibotta

[00:00:00] Justin Kendall: Heading to CBC? Kick things off the day before The Brewbound's meetup at Love City Brewing in Philly, Sunday, April 19th from 5 to 7 p.m. Connect with beer industry leaders, grab a drink, and catch up with The Brewbound team. It's free to attend and walking distance from the convention center. Head The Brewbound.com slash lovecity.rsvp. And don't forget to catch The Brewbound team at booth 956 during CBC. Next on The Brewbound Podcast, top 50 talk, a merger, a big beer retirement, a middle tier shakeup and much more. Hello and welcome to The Brewbound Podcast. I'm Justin Kendall.

[00:00:51] Jessica Infante: I'm Jessica Infante.

[00:00:52] Zoe Licata: And I'm Zoe Licata.

[00:00:53] Justin Kendall: And this week, we have a featured interview with Chris Riedy, Chief Revenue Officer for Ibotta.

[00:01:00] Jessica Infante: So Ibotta is currently in their Ibotta 2.0 right now, but Ibotta 1.0, you and I were very familiar with, they were like a digital couponing app that allowed you to, you know, shop various places and you know, get cash back or various other deals from brands that would participate on their platform. But in the current iteration of their life, they are really kind of doing more like digital couponing white label stuff for retailers. So super interesting. They're able to facilitate these promotions between brands and consumers, but they also get a lot of data, which is very cool for brands to see. how their stuff's performing at retail. I bet they can get pretty granular. It was really nice to talk with Chris. He is pretty fresh in the role. So I'd be really interested to hit him back up a year from now and see how things are different and what's going on. But it feels like we did that interview like, I don't know, five years ago.

[00:01:58] Justin Kendall: It does, because this week has been, it's been a year this week already. News keeps it coming, and if we sound frazzled, it's because the Brewers Association's Top 50 list hit this week. Hen House and Fort Point have merged. Gavin Hattersley from Molson Coors is retiring, and I'm sure something else has happened by the time you hear this, but I'm out of here after we record this.

[00:02:25] Jessica Infante: Yeah. Well, to put a timestamp on it, it is 2.18 PM Eastern time on Tuesday, April 15th. So by the time you hear this on Thursday, who the hunk knows what happened?

[00:02:36] Zoe Licata: Yeah. Twice as many things could have happened at that time. Easily.

[00:02:40] Justin Kendall: Easily. So let's get into it. Well, let's start with the top 50, and we don't have to spend a whole lot of time on this, but I want to get some quick takeaways from both of you on what we saw in the data and maybe on the list as well. You each took a list. I took the data. So let's just chat real quick about what's going on, because next week we'll be talking with, well, you both will be talking with Matt Gaciok, and you can go deeper with him into things.

[00:03:11] Jessica Infante: So I'll start, I wrote the top 50 craft part of the story list-wise and the top 50, like the top 10 craft is always kind of not interesting because not a whole lot happens. you know, everybody just kind of usually holds their spots. Sometimes you have a little shift here or there, you know, Sapporo buys Stone and then they leave the top 10, things like that. But this year we had some movement. So the top three are always the same, Yingling, Boston Beer, Sierra. Coming in at number four, up two spots from last year was Tilray. And when you buy four breweries in a year, even though they're only part of the data for a quarter of it, that'll happen. Tilray bumped Duval, which is Firestone, Boulevard, Burioma Game, bumped them down one spot to number five, and then Gambrinus, which is mostly Shiner, but also Trumer, also down another spot. But then throwing a whole wrench into all these works was ABV, Artisanal Brewing Ventures, which is the One of like the original craft roll-up platforms of Victory, Southern Tier, Six Point, Bold Rock, but they're not included here. They opted not to publish this year because I don't know. But we checked in with Matt to be like...

[00:04:29] Justin Kendall: I think you can draw your own conclusions on that one.

[00:04:31] Jessica Infante: You can draw your own conclusions. Yeah. Yeah, I checked in with Matt to be like, hey man, I see that they're number 21 on the overall brewing list, but they're not on the top 50 craft list where they should be at number 11. And I still have foggy mom brain sometimes. So I was like, did they get sold and they're not craft anymore? Did I miss an enormous story somehow? But no, they just don't want to publish. Ergo, they get left off the top 50 craft list, even though, Justin, as you pointed out, we can see. We all have eyes. We know what's happening.

[00:05:03] Justin Kendall: You're on the top 50 overall list.

[00:05:05] Jessica Infante: You're number 21. Nothing to sneeze at. Not too bad.

[00:05:08] Justin Kendall: Which means you're just outside the top 10. Like, what are we doing here?

[00:05:14] Jessica Infante: I don't know, man. So last year they were seven, this year they would have been, what, like 11? So they're out. FXMAT moved up six spots, which you never really see when you get this high in the list. You don't see movement like that. You'll see one or two, maybe. But FXMAT 2024, which is the data we're looking at here, was the first full year that they had flying dog production, including in the whole the whole shebang. So that pushed them up a bunch. Athletic was number eight. They moved up to Brooklyn nine and Monster 10. And that was the top 10. We can get way more in the weeds higher on the list, but I wanted to pause to give your ears a rest.

[00:05:59] Justin Kendall: Athletics, a big jumper over the last few years, basically coming out of nowhere on our pitch slam stage. And now they're a top 10 craft brewer, pretty impressive growth over the years. That's worth calling out. And I think, you know, beyond the top 10, you've got a list here of nine breweries that moved up five or more spaces. And that's always interesting to look at too, but then there's a lot of new names on the list too. Some of that's coming out of attrition, consolidation, a lot of different reasons that people are moving up and moving down on this list.

[00:06:38] Jessica Infante: Yeah, like from 40 on down, there's a ton of new names, which is cool. And it's, you know, friends The Brewbound, like Russian River, who were up from number 56 in 2023, they were number 44. Scream rocketed up. They were 61 in 23. They are now 40. Great for them. Same thing with Fremont. They were number 55 in 23. They were 41 this year. Ton of movement towards the bottom 10th of this list, which is cool to see. Also, a few interesting cases where BJ's Restaurants, the brew pub chain, they popped on at 43, but they didn't publish in 23, so we don't really have anything to compare it to. Same thing with Fatheads, a brewery out of Ohio. New in the top 50 this year, but they didn't publish in 23. So we don't really know. Other breweries that we have picked as rising stars in recent years, New Trail is on the list at number 46. They were 67, Brewbound Rising Star in 2024, Zero Gravity. I want to say we named them a rising star in 21.

[00:07:44] Justin Kendall: I can't remember the exact year, but they were definitely, I remember because I did the interview.

[00:07:48] Jessica Infante: Yeah, it was 21 or 22 because they had the conversation with their team at our former Brewbound Live Hotel, the low Santa Monica, may it rest in peace. But Zero Gravity was just outside last year at number 52, this year they are very comfortably in the list at number 47. So very cool.

[00:08:06] Justin Kendall: Anything you want to hit on the overall top 50 list, Zoe?

[00:08:10] Zoe Licata: Yeah, we can dive in just a couple of the big movements in there. And like you said, we're talking to Matt next week, so we'll talk more about both these lists. But Kraft Ohana was the biggest movement within the overall list. They ranked number 28 overall, and that includes Maui Brewing and Modern Times. But that was interesting. I think that is mainly because they were focusing a lot more on mainland production in 2024 as they were recovering from stuff happening in Hawaii. But they were the largest mover on that list. Other pretty big moves, FX Matt, as they mentioned also on Kraft, Troggs, and Great Frontier Holdings all moved up six spots. And then Rheingreist at 27 and Brewdog at 41, they each went up five spots. Ones that were not on the overall list that were in 2023 were Minhas, which was 39 in 2023, Kings and Convicts, which was 40 in 2023, and Muntucky Cold Snacks, which was number 50. And then those that kind of filled in their spots were St. Arnold Brewing, Pizza Port, and Surly. Surly rounded out the list at number 50.

[00:09:17] Justin Kendall: And there's some real mixed bag numbers here as far as craft production declined 4% in 2024. That's down to 23.1 million barrels collectively, and that's Brewer'Brewers Association defined craft. So you're not counting your New Belgium's Bells, Founders, AB, and well, I would say Molson Coors Craft, but we're just talking about Blue Moon really at this point. One of the other things to take away here I was surprised to see that the market share by volume has remained steady year over year at 13.3%. Kraft made up nearly a quarter of total beer market retail dollar sales in 2024. And that was driven by price increases and an increase in onsite sales distribution, not so much. And the retail dollar value of Kraft increased 3%. $28.9 billion when it's all said and done. We could get into the openings and closings numbers. They've been revised. Still not great. 501 closings to 434 openings. So those are both up from the preliminary numbers shared in December. So you can check out the story The Brewbound.com. As we've mentioned, Zoe and Jess will have a conversation with Matt next week. But another story that hit just as we were doing this, Fort Point Beer Company and Hent House in California, they're merging. They're going to maintain their sort of independent operations, but they joined the list of collectives now.

[00:11:01] Jessica Infante: Yeah, and this is something that we have seen quite a lot of, especially lately. Justin, you called out in the story of the few collectives that are forming in Colorado lately. I think what we are seeing now is that the The platforms that formed like 10 years ago, like the Canarchies and the ABVs where you have... ABV is a little bit more regionalized, but Canarchy was really all over the place. Breweries in California, Florida, Texas, Colorado, North Carolina. We're not doing that so much anymore as these regional bands of breweries coming together and really being able to... share resources and services and all sorts of stuff. I think this is where we're going now. And to me, it's logical.

[00:11:45] Justin Kendall: And it's even more important when you see what's happened with some of these larger brewing entities that have come into craft. You look at what Monster did, they're letting the leases go or whatever in Salt Lake City. Oh yeah, we should talk about that. Do you remember that 10 barrel photo? Yes. Do you know the one I'm talking about? Yes. Where they were celebrating when Tilray bought them? And everyone thought when Anheuser-Busch bought them, or a lot of people thought, that essentially what has happened under Tilray would happen with Anheuser-Busch. And that's not to say that it didn't to a degree.

[00:12:22] Zoe Licata: I think they're coming at it in a less attached way almost, where like when it was some of these larger big beer companies coming in and getting some of these craft brands, I feel like it was about like adding some sort of personalized local crafty brand to their lineup that was different than their existing big beer stuff. And now what's happening is the larger kind of outside of beer companies that are taking these craft brands on are coming in at it as, oh, this is a part of our greater objective to have a wide presence in beverage alcohol. Now it's less about the brands themselves, I think, and more about, okay, what's the best way to have production and to capitalize on being a part of this industry overall. So they are making decisions more based with a greater Bev-Alk focus than necessarily a just beer focus. And I think that makes them make bigger moves, like shutting down production somewhere and moving it somewhere else.

[00:13:30] Justin Kendall: That's definitely that. And I think I veered us off because I mentioned Tilray when we're talking about Monster.

[00:13:38] Zoe Licata: But I think they have similar motives, right?

[00:13:42] Jessica Infante: Yeah. I think when Monster bought Canica, they didn't buy Canica because they wanted a collection of craft beer brands. They wanted a distribution footprint. They wanted production facilities. Tilray, I wish I could tell you what they're doing. I really don't know. But it's similar. Monster, I think, has been a little bit more strategic. the way that the network they bought was set up was they weren't all... Tilray is just like... Tilray is like a remora. They're the little fish that's following the shark and they're just gobbling up whatever the shark doesn't eat, which is... The sharks here would be A, B, and also cores. And they end up with a really random collection of things and they've got a bunch of breweries in Oregon and then a bunch of breweries in... A couple breweries in New York and they've got a lot of duplicates.

[00:14:29] Zoe Licata: Yeah. Monster doesn't have that problem. Well, they have the advantage of when they acquired it, it was already a collective, right? Exactly. So it was already had some of these things ironed out.

[00:14:39] Jessica Infante: Yeah. Whereas Tilray's acquisitions, they bought them all in big chunks, but they bought together these craft families that were put together piecemeal by the bigger brewers. But it's like, do they want this for the brands? Do they want it for the facilities? Because Tilray's closing a bunch of facilities too.

[00:14:57] Justin Kendall: Exactly.

[00:14:58] Jessica Infante: It's hard to know. The other thing is that we can guess, like there's been a lot more cuts both in jobs and facilities from both of these companies than I feel like we ever saw with AB or Molson Coors when they were doing this a decade ago. But that's the thing, it was a decade ago and things are super different right now.

[00:15:13] Justin Kendall: Yeah, and that's not to say that AB didn't do some of these things. I mean, look what happened with Platform. You're essentially seeing that with some of these brands that we're seeing with Monster and Tilray at this point, whether it's Hop Valley, which we talked about last week, or, you know, Squatters and Wasatch, I guess, at this point. It's not like the CEOs of Monster didn't say something more was coming because they have said that they're looking to, I can't remember if it was rationalized or what the quote was, but it was basically like, we're not done. And I don't know if they're done and I'm not sure anybody knows if they're done other than them. And so I feel for the people over there because it's got to be an uneasy position to be in.

[00:16:02] Jessica Infante: Yeah. And they've also, it's not just the Utah production facility. They've closed production facilities in Texas. They closed D Bellum's facility.

[00:16:12] Justin Kendall: Oscar Blues.

[00:16:13] Jessica Infante: Oscar Blues in Texas. So two in Texas. And they also transitioned Cigar City's big brewery in Tampa to like an R&D hub across brands. So really they're just rocking with the Oscar Blues breweries in Colorado and North Carolina. And that could be all they need. We don't really know because they've also, in addition to all the cannery brands they have, the Beast and Nasty Beast, and I assume they're making those at their breweries, because why else would you have bought these breweries? But the standout on those brands isn't great either. But yeah, it's got to be rough to be working in one of these companies and just wondering. I worked at a newspaper for a long time during the Great Recession, and it was always cuts here, cuts there, and you always wondered, and it was very stressful.

[00:17:02] Justin Kendall: talk about something else that is... Is that any good news? No. I mean, we could talk about Vermont Beer Shepherd shutting down with little to no notice. Basically, a lot of small brands found out the same day that they were going to cease operations that Vermont Beer Shepherd was closing in where else? Vermont. I talked to some of the breweries that were affected. We also found out that Lawson's is winding down the beer guy and ending self-distribution. So part of that was Vermont Beer Shepherd has sold the rights to Lawson's to Baker Distributing, so Lawson's is going to be statewide in Vermont through them. That's another change that's going on there, but what we're seeing is consolidation in the middle tier. you have a lot of small breweries that don't have that route to market. And probably a baker that has a big book of existing craft isn't as interested in bringing some of these smaller brands on.

[00:18:07] Jessica Infante: Yeah. And you talked to a few of the smaller brands that were affected and this must be a scary time for them because there are only so many of these tiny boutique craft dedicated distributors and they close all the time. It's hard capital intensive work that they do. And if it's not there, it's not there. So, you know, I know you talked to the guys from Weird Window. They must be stressing, I'm sure, to have absolutely no notice that you were losing your distributor. What do you do if you're not set up for self-distribution? It's not something you, I guess you could, you could just start throwing cases in the back of your car and driving around.

[00:18:45] Justin Kendall: But as they pointed out, if you're doing that, you're not making beer. And a lot of them don't have the teams to do all of the things.

[00:18:53] Zoe Licata: Right. And logistically, that's just a lot now that they have to figure out as quickly as possible just to make sure that they have the beers that were already at retailers and things still going as we are very quickly approaching what should be their busiest time of the year.

[00:19:10] Jessica Infante: And one thing that Beer Shepard did was they specialized in cold chain, which is not always the norm. And that's super important to, we know Lawson's. So I assume Baker can handle it for them. They're a big enough operation that they have the ability. Yeah, that's our understanding. And one thing we did learn was that Beer Shepard announced they were closing down first and then Lawson's went to Baker. It's not that Lawson's was leaving their distributor and the distributor said, oh no, we've lost our biggest brand. That is not what happened here.

[00:19:36] Justin Kendall: Yeah. That's a great point of clarification too.

[00:19:39] Jessica Infante: Because that happens in other places, mostly California, usually with a much bigger, not Vermont braced brand.

[00:19:50] Justin Kendall: Not craft focused.

[00:19:51] Jessica Infante: No, I think we all know what we're talking about.

[00:19:55] The Brewbound: This episode is brought to you by the Craft Brewers Conference, where big ideas, bold beers, and brutally honest shop talk collide. Join thousands of industry pros leveling up their game. Don't miss it. Register now at CraftBrewersConference.com.

[00:20:15] Justin Kendall: Let's talk about one other story, and that's Gavin Hattersley is retiring from Molson Coors and announced it to the board of directors over the weekend. And the thing that I found most interesting in this is what they didn't say. And what they didn't say is, here's our successor. They said, we're hiring a search firm, and we're gonna look at external and internal candidates. And that's something that this company hasn't done from what I could tell in the last succession, which was Gavin taking over as CEO. He was primed and ready to go. I raised an eyebrow at this one. I was surprised that they didn't announce his successor.

[00:21:04] Zoe Licata: Yeah. I mean, it's one of the largest brewers in the world. So it's, it's, not something where you take that succession route unseriously. You normally have that pretty planned out. I thought it was also super interesting that this is happening right after Molson Coors has been pretty vocal about how they are going to be or want to be the leaders of what happens with beer and decision-making around what happens with the category. They have not shied away from calling themselves category captains and wanting to be the voice for that. So now when you have and unknown of who the leader of that leadership group is going to be, that's a super interesting place to be.

[00:21:46] Justin Kendall: Also comes at a time when we're talking about tariffs and beer is having a very hard time in the marketplace. And when you have all those factors stacking up, if I'm Gavin and I've got the money saved up, which I'm sure after six years in that position and 28 years at Molson Coors, I'm sure he's doing okay. So what better time to step away than the madness that is now?

[00:22:17] Zoe Licata: I mean, they've also had a lot of leadership and like structural changes recently too of just like how they operate. So I'm sure that's complicated matters as well, whether that factored into Gavin's decision or just like factoring into what the succession plan is going to be. It's not really clear cut anymore based on so many changes that they've had going on structurally.

[00:22:38] Justin Kendall: The other point I would note on this too is they tossed out a lot of time-based restricted stock, which is basically if you can hold on a year or two years to its executive team, they're going to make out with some of them with larger percentages than others of stock, but they're trying to take care of their executive team or at least make sure that they're in place through this transition.

[00:23:05] Jessica Infante: That makes sense. I feel like we've seen it happen quite a bit lately. We're an organization, it's a new CEO, and then you see a lot of churn. So I assume you're going to want to keep your peeps.

[00:23:16] Justin Kendall: Well, let's do one fun thing before we get to our featured interview, and that's Another Round Tabbing Out, and you've got one, Jess.

[00:23:23] Jessica Infante: Oh, I sure do. So last week, Talaya and personal care company Flamingo announced that they were making like shower beer prep kits. So Talia's got a shower beer and Flamingo made like a little suction cup koozie that goes on the wall of your shower to hold your shower beer. And I don't have one. Perhaps I should have gotten one at the time, but I don't know. Do you want me to wax poetic about how much I love shower beers? Yes, please. Okay, great. in an outdoor shower in the summer with a Beer Co, nothing better. Nothing better. It's literally my favorite thing. And I don't really get this experience anymore, which is very sad because in the pre-Sandy Jersey Shore, everybody's homes were like just a little one-story house right on The Brewbound and you had your little outdoor shower. And it was great. It was fine. We were all on a level playing field. But after Sandy, everybody had to elevate their houses. And then everybody started covering their outdoor showers, which is a real bummer. So you're still showering outside. It's really not the same. My mom's house, the shower is under the house. So you're like outside taking a shower, but you can't look up and see the sky. After a day on the beach, man, now I'm sad. I was supposed to be happy. Yeah.

[00:24:40] Justin Kendall: So you're buying Another Round.

[00:24:42] Jessica Infante: I am buying all of The Brewbound on the shower beer Holder. Same.

[00:24:49] Justin Kendall: What about the beer? Blackberry lime lager.

[00:24:54] Jessica Infante: Delish. Amazing. And like, look at this nice little razor. I am on Team Billy, but I could be persuaded to join Team Flamingo. It's a very cute setup.

[00:25:03] Zoe Licata: In times of uncertainty or distress, I feel like a lot of times there's an extra emphasis on self-care. And one of those things is taking long, lengthy, everything showers, as many like to call them, and adding a Beer Co that, I think is a perfect mix. And look, you're now giving folks, in occasion, another occasion where they can have a beer, right? How many showers get taken without beers?

[00:25:32] Jessica Infante: Many, many.

[00:25:34] Justin Kendall: Too many. Too many, exactly. Maybe that would help me empty out my beer fridge. Probably. I just need to move it to the bathroom. Before we get out of here, let's plug a couple of things that we probably should have plugged at the top of the show, but we're gonna be at the Kraft Brewers Conference. We will be there on the trade show floor in booth 512. Look for us there. We'll be recording episodes of this podcast. By next week, we'll have a complete site takeover as we all head off to Indianapolis. We'll have our picks. We'll have a preview of what's coming up at the craft brewers conference. Just kind of an overall feel of what's going on in craft and so much more. So stay tuned for that. Look for that The Brewbound.com. If you're an insider, you'll have full access to all of it.

[00:26:26] Jessica Infante: We are going to be doing some podcast interviews and hanging out. If you are strolling around Brew Expo America, please come say hi. We love. to meet people in person, it's always a treat.

[00:26:39] Zoe Licata: And if you are hosting any sort of event in Indianapolis or you know of anything going on that you think we should really go to, send us an email or come tell us and let us know, because we also want to try. We're not going to be on the expo floor, you know, at nighttime. We're going to have some time to actually go out and explore and try to see some other people too. So please let us know if there's anything we should make sure we're attending.

[00:27:02] Justin Kendall: Absolutely. And if you're merging with somebody, tell us ahead of time. Other than that, we've The Brewbound Live coming up December 10th and 11th in Marina Del Rey. You can find all about it at brewboundlive.com. Tickets are available now. With that, let's get to our featured interview with Chris Riedy from Ibotta.

[00:27:23] Jessica Infante: Our guest today is Chris Riedy, the new Chief Revenue Officer at Ibotta, a retail-centric platform that enables consumer-facing promotions and data-driven insights for brands and retailers. Chris, welcome. Thank you so much for being here. How are you today?

[00:27:36] Brewers Association: Jess, Dustin, great to see y'all. I'm doing great.

[00:27:41] Jessica Infante: Well, I am super excited to dig in as we were just talking about in my old life on a craft beer brand, we used to do programs on Ibotta. So I'm a little bit familiar, but as we just talked about, the company really made some pivots in 2020, as did basically the entire rest. of the world, but particularly the BevAlc universe. So I'm really excited to hear how those things have changed, particularly in ways that have helped you guys become really, really essential for garnering insights for how consumers act in today's marketplace. So Chris, before we jump in to the conversation I wanna have, can you give us a little background on that, that I bought a 2.0 that we just talked about?

[00:28:21] Brewers Association: 100%. What Ibotta found in the 1.0 version, the version that you know from your former life, is that consumers generally are looking for value, and especially in times of economic uncertainty, where we are right now in 2025, and that the Ibotta app was incredibly popular. 50 million downloads, great usage. But what the business really started to learn is that meeting the consumer where they shop is actually a little more powerful than asking the consumer to always come back to a single place. And so the business was able to form partnerships with Family Dollar and Dollar General, Walmart, Instacart, and DoorDash most recently, and about 85 other convenience and regional grocery brands that allow iBotta to act as a white label solution for the retailer where we can connect the brand to a consumer. So if you're in the Wal-Mart experience or if you're in the Instacart experience you'll never see I bought a branding. What you will see if you search for a product is the opportunity on Wal-Mart to receive cash back. There's a little blue box in the product listings within search results or on product detail page. Then on Instacart, you would see a little yellow call out with a coupon offering. They're built very natively to those platforms and that we think is of incredible importance because it makes it easy for the consumer. But ultimately, what we're doing there again is just trying to meet the consumer where they are, such that the brand can interact in a really seamless way at the time of consideration and ultimately purchase.

[00:30:02] Jessica Infante: Got it, all makes sense. Well, I mean, this week, and just for clarity's sake, we are recording this on Thursday, April 10th, where the tariff rollercoaster continues, but I don't even wanna call out what specifics are of that situation, because it will absolutely be different by the time this airs. But the real theme that we're seeing across the board, kind of everywhere, is that consumers are bracing for uncertainty. So in turbulent times like this, how can we expect their shopping behavior to change?

[00:30:31] Brewers Association: I would think my instinct, I'll give you my instinct and then just what we're seeing. My instinct is that at a time like this, the consumer becomes more cautious. The rollercoaster is very aptly put. One day it's, oh my gosh, what's going to happen? It's horrible. The next day, maybe it's not going to be an impact. But I think all of that thrash creates a bit of uncertainty. And so in those moments, What we see is that the consumer is going to focus on value. If you look at research that we've done, we see that about 72% of consumers are looking for value in a time like this. So where we fit into the play is, again, enabling a brand to connect with that consumer. But I think for all brands right now, what they're trying to understand is how do they manage price? And then how do they also keep sales going up? Because if their costs are going to go up, likely that's going to get passed on to a consumer. And that, in this uncertain time, could be pretty off-putting to the consumer. And so we just try to be a facilitator on behalf of the consumer to drive revenue up there.

[00:31:39] Justin Kendall: Are you seeing an uptick in the number of users coming into the platform at the moment?

[00:31:44] Brewers Association: So the thing that, just to, again, to step back to the 1.0, 2.0, we reach about 200 million Americans on a monthly basis. So where you will see the numbers go up, if you look at some of the stats around e-commerce and grocery, I saw a stat last week that said e-commerce, grocery year over year is up about 30%. If you take it to delivery, so delivery of essentials, beer, et cetera, et cetera, that's up north 40% on a year-on-year basis. And because we are, again, embedded into the experience out of Walmart, out of Instacart, soon to be DoorDash, that's where we live. So we see a lot of growth in that way. But I just want to be clear that within our app, we see a little bit of increase, but we're really seeing the entire American shopper. We feel like we've got a pretty broad swath of what that shopper looks like.

[00:32:35] Jessica Infante: Obviously we know that e-commerce for anything you want or need is here to stay. I think maybe people thought in the early days of the pandemic that, you know, we'll all go back to normal and we'll walk the stores with our carts and that's what we'll do. But that's not what's happening here, which is interesting. I mean, that's like what I do and that's how I go shopping, but I'm not normal and I like going in the grocery store. But as consumers are changing their overall shopping habits, including using delivery and click and collect, how is beverage alcohol affected?

[00:33:09] Brewers Association: It's a really good question, and I will say, and I bought a journey, there was a time years ago where you were a customer on behalf of your manufacturer, and then there was a time where we were doing less in the alcohol world. The partnerships that we have in the last six months kind of brought to life with Instacart and Dollar General has brought us back into the alcohol world. And we are forming partnerships with the manufacturers and helping them do exactly what we do really well in the consumer packaged goods space. I think that ultimately what the e-commerce does and what the delivery does is provide a level of convenience. And that convenience is where we want to be. So I think it's a little too soon for us to say, are we seeing something different from alcohol compared to just, say, general consumables or maybe snacks, frozen foods? But I would expect that we will see pretty rapid deployment from a brand standpoint and pretty rapid consumption on a consumer standpoint, because to Fort Point, it's just easier now. And I don't think people stop going to the grocery store. I think they supplement with, oh, you know what? We do need another six pack of Beer Co, you know what? We do need another six or another bag of chips for the friends that are coming over this weekend. And that's where I think the delivery really stands out.

[00:34:34] Jessica Infante: Got it. That's super helpful. So how can BevAlc Brands best leverage Ibotta's insights? Because I remember back in my day, it was, you know, we, I want to say we timed it with seasonal rollouts and made sure that we were giving appropriately valued cashback offerings on six packs and 12 packs. But in the new world of Ibotta 2.0, how can BevAlc Brands best partner with you guys?

[00:34:58] Brewers Association: The best way to think about how to use us, if I'm in a brand shoes, I'm thinking about a couple of things. Am I trying to break through with a product? So do I have a product? Is it a new offering? Is it something we're trying to drive trial against? And if it is, how do I think about constructing an offer to a consumer that will entice them to do that? And I think about that as a big driver for kind of the innovation side of the business. And that aligns really well to what you're talking about. Okay. It's what is this weekend? It's master's weekend. We go back a weekend. It's the final four weekend from a weekend ago. That's a lot of people are maybe getting together. You might want to drive innovation there. And so putting out the offer that ties to the moment in line with the new product offering would make a lot of sense. The other way that I think about it is you're just trying to move product. So what we want to help the beer manufacturer, the alcohol manufacturer, the CPG manufacturer understand is that trying to find the right offer that can be always on and contribution margin positive. for the everyday brand. And then also think about, for the breakthrough product, what is the right way to do that offer scheme? And that, if you think about that as just two big camps, within those, how do we think about Justin and Chris as unique individuals that may be beer drinkers, we may be really good targets, but we actually may need to be enticed differently. And so where we see a lot of value is taking all the data that we have. We run a lot of machine learning to kind of crunch that data and to get to the point to say, OK, for this product, which is a breakthrough product, Chris is a really good potential consumer, and here's the right offer for him. For Justin, maybe not. Maybe Justin is just tried and true. He loves the Heritage brand, and he's going to stay there, but he will be enticed with an offer. And so that's when we think about working with a brand, it's not just hey, here's the budget we have, can you go enact it? That can work, but we believe that we actually have the opportunity to help the brand learn and ultimately become more efficient. If we can entice one person for an offer and Another Round, maybe they don't need the same offer, or one person will use a breakthrough offer and the other won't, that's data that ultimately just drives up the efficacy of the campaigns. And that's really what we're trying to do. We wanna be more than, kind of the one-size-fits-all or blunt force instrument.

[00:37:27] Justin Kendall: It very much sounds tailor-made for a consumer-by-consumer basis at this point.

[00:37:34] Brewers Association: I think it needs to be. Consumers, they're unique, right? We're all people, and we all can like similar things, but we may react differently to them, and we may react differently in different times. And again, with Ibotta, Across the Ibotta Performance Network, presenting offers to consumers in more of a precise or targeted way ultimately drives up the learning, and then driving up learning will ultimately drive up efficacy. And that's something that what we're trying to do here is form always-on, long-standing, mutually beneficial partnerships with all of the manufacturers. We really see ourselves sitting at the place that drives value. We align our business model such that we get paid when the product is sold. And we think that's the right way to do this. And so I agree, Justin, it sets up well for the consumer, and we think that sets up really well for the manufacturer.

[00:38:33] Jessica Infante: Do you see any overall trends in terms of, you know, beer and Bevalk sales and, you know, offer redemptions like at the geographic level? Are there any areas of the country where these kinds of offers tend to perform a little better?

[00:38:48] Brewers Association: We're seeing probably slightly more macro versus geo, and I can say that we see beer sales as going down, degrading a little bit, whereas non-alcohol is going up. We're seeing that pretty regularly. We're seeing craft beer down more than premium national beer. We're seeing import Beer Co up a little bit more. And I think that the import beer is tied to potentially an ABV thing, because that's the other thing that I will say is just the NA beer trend, which I'm sure you're seeing. I know you guys did a story or a podcast on this recently. That's a real thing that we're seeing. And I think that consumers Is it a shift to being more health conscious or being more aware is something that we're seeing. And what we believe is that import, the increase on the import, while the down on the craft is likely attached to the belief that import is healthier and or on a lower ABV. But we are really seeing the NABR kind of move at levels that we haven't seen before.

[00:40:00] Justin Kendall: So is there a particular size of supplier that you're looking to work with? Is it more of a nationally distributed brand? Is that the type of supplier or partner that works best on the iBOTA platform?

[00:40:15] Brewers Association: Super good question, Justin. We want to work with somebody that has the ability to lean in with us. We're on the journey to build a full self-service enablement of the platform. So we will be at a place in the not-too-distant future where a brand of any size can log in and create an offer, create a budget, launch an offer. Today we're doing a little bit of that, but it's still mostly a managed service business. And what we find is that anybody that is ready to work with us, it doesn't matter if they're an emerging brand or they're a true enterprise heritage level, the biggest of the big, but what we find is when that company is ready to lean in, they want to do the learning, it can work great. And so on the non-ALK side, we have some of the kind of what three years ago would have been unknown CPGs that we've been working with. And now they're emerging, past emerging to Darling, or maybe they've been acquired by other really big companies. And then obviously we're working with the overwhelming majority of the largest brands out there. So if you have the team that can have the conversation with us, we would love to talk to you. And please give me a call. I'd love to talk to you.

[00:41:32] Justin Kendall: What are the types of insights that those partner brands can tap into with you?

[00:41:38] Brewers Association: The first thing that you can tap into is just like, what are you seeing from a shopping standpoint? What is somebody buying? Are they buying my product? Have they bought my product before? How do we think they're going to buy it going forward? What other products are they buying? So we have a lot of just general insights around shopping behavior and then Once you start running offers with us, that's when you tap into the true impact and insights related to, are we increasing velocity? And are we increasing margin? And what products work better with which offers? That's what I find to be fascinating in this role is that You can go into a manufacturer, and they'll tell you, you know, this product is hard to move, just doesn't move as quickly. And then they'll say, this one, it moves really well. And you'll run offers against them, and that may get confirmed. And then other times you're like, wow, the product that was generally we thought would be hard to move actually is moving very well with an offer. And so I think about it as just there's an opportunity for always-on learning. And that always-on learning, again, contribution margin positive, that's what we're looking for. We're not looking to be, again, an impression-based or click-based, we get paid and not worried about what happens. We want to drive value back to the customer. And that value is obviously economic, but it's also learning that hopefully they take and migrate to the rest of their businesses for the rest of their business. And it helps them as a, just a better operating company.

[00:43:06] Jessica Infante: Awesome. Well, Chris, I know you're busy, so we don't want to take up too much more of your time, but if people do want to reach out to see, you know, how their brands can work with Ibotta, how can they find you guys? What's the best way?

[00:43:17] Brewers Association: There's obviously the website, which is, as you would expect, www.ibotta.com. If you go into the app store and you want to see what the consumer app is like, it's ibotta, I-B-O-T-T-A. Obviously, you can experience this inside of those other retailers, Walmart, Instacart, et cetera, et cetera. And I think if you want to reach out, I'd love to hear from customers, or if you want to reach out and say, hey, we love the app, that's also fine. I'm just my name, Chris Riedy.ibata.com. Ultimately, we want to be a great partner to retailers and brands, and then ultimately on the behalf of that consumer such that they can find the value that they're looking for, which helps the retailer drive sales and helps the manufacturer move product.

[00:44:05] Jessica Infante: Awesome. Well, it's, you know, speaking from experience, it's a terrific tool to have in your marketing toolkit, particularly as everything becomes more and more and more digitized. So Chris, it's been so nice to meet you. I'm so glad you were able to chat with us and let's keep in touch.

[00:44:21] Brewers Association: Jess, Justin, thanks so much for the opportunity. I hope it warms up in Massachusetts, and we'll talk to y'all soon.

[00:44:27] Jessica Infante: Thank you.

[00:44:27] Brewers Association: Thank you.

[00:44:28] Jessica Infante: Okay, well, and that's our show for this week. Thank you so much to Chris, our guest, for joining. Thank you to Justin and Zoe for being the best team, and to our Brewbound BevNET audio-visual crew who makes this podcast possible every week. Couldn't do it without them, and thank you so much to all of our listeners for joining us. And if you enjoy the podcast, please like, rate, and review it wherever you like to pod. We'll be back again with a fresh episode next week.