Dave Infante on Diageo’s Cuts, Garage Beer’s Data Center Cooling Plan and BuzzBallz' Boozy Pop-Tarts Collab

Fingers boozeletter author Dave Infante joins the Brewbound Podcast to deep dive Diageo’s ongoing restructuring and workforce slashing under CEO Sir Dave Lewis (aka “Drastic Dave” for his reputation for making big cuts at previous stops). 

Infante shares insights from his reporting and conversations with Diageo employees, many of whom wondered why the Guinness and Johnnie Walker maker was so slow to adapt to the modern bev-alc competitive landscape.

“The frustration that I heard from current and former Diageo employees was mostly about why weren’t we doing this before we had to start laying everyone off,” Infante tells Brewbound editor Justin Kendall and managing editor Jessica Infante (no relation). 

“You don’t have to get to this point before you start pivoting to RTDs.”

The trio also hit recent headlines, including Garage Beer and Liquid Death tapping into the real world animosity around data centers and BuzzBallz’s recent Pop-Tarts partnership.

Jessica offered a theory on the BuzzBallz-Pop-Tarts team up: “Kids aren’t eating Pop-Tarts. You know who’s eating Pop-Tarts? Sad, elder millennials who can’t afford anything else and want a tiny treat. The moms who would be out marching on the capitol up in arms against this aren’t feeding that to their kids.”

“They’re the ones who are intrigued by the BuzzBallz Pop-Tarts that they saw on Instagram,” Dave adds.

“That’s definitely going into their Stanley tumblers,” Jess says.

Listen here or on your preferred podcasting platform.