Comments on: Bud & Bud: Now They’re Buds?

By: George Fisher

George Fisher — Fri, 09 Mar 2007 18:11:36 +0000

Where to start – or more likely – where to end?

Here’s the problem with Harry’s democratic hypothesis. Nearly every large volume grocer has a category captain (or some other nonsense nomenclature) that “sets” the available space for beer. This is suppossed to bestow some benefit that a multi billion/million $ retailer cannot come up with on their own “well of course this account needs 98 facings of every conceivable package size of our major brand). Guess what? When the category captain rolls out with some pseudo micro or new to the market import, those products get automatic distribution. There may be a locally sold micro or a more sought after import, but no matter. At one set I observed the “category captain” remarked “how does anybody drink this shit (in his mind shit=craft beer)? I had a Sam Adams once and then I had to drink 10 “light beers” to get the taste out of my mouth.” So the multi-billion $ retailer has this guy running the show???

Reality is a major brand that has had 19 years of decreasing sales, yet somehow is still ubiquitous and often one of a couple of choices in major venues. The ability to manage the decline is really impressive.

Educated, passionate consumers,retailers and on-premise owners make the difference.

By: RationalThought

RationalThought — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 13:04:02 +0000

I agree with Harry. The whole AB Import discussion is really a discussion of supply and demand. If consumers demand more choice, market will adjust to supply more choice. In example is the AB funnel strategy itself. AB has adjusted its supply practices (approved imports) to meet consumer demand for choice. That really suggests that the fundamental laws of supply and demand are working well in the current beer market. -RT

By: Jim Dorsch

Jim Dorsch — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 09:31:38 +0000

What limits consumer choice is government intervention such as state-mandated exclusive territories and franchise laws written at the behest of wholesalers.

By: Harry Schuhmacher

Harry Schuhmacher — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 05:30:28 +0000

Not so fast, mon frere. Love the blog, but sometimes you connect dots which don’t always connect with reality. The top brass at A-B and Budvar have been friendly for over ten years. They know they must fight for their respective trademarks in each country, but in the end the global beer community is an exclusive club.

As for diversity, this deal and others have no effect on access to market. If anything, the more imports A-B allows into its distributor network, the more motivated Miller/Coors distributors are to taken on more obscure beers. Also, I see no A-B distributors becoming more exclusive to A-B, even with InBev and Budvar, et al. These new brands don’t pay many bills. The A-B distributors I know, and I know a lot of them, are still actively looking for high growth, high margin beers for their portfolio.

There’s always a lot of hand wringing about A-B whenever they do anything. But the fact remains that A-B, Miller, Coors, or any other brewer don’t force people at gunpoint to buy their brands. The consumer ultimately decides. If a small craft or imported brand can’t find distribution under this very democratic system, then they have options in the wine and spirits houses, or with independent craft distributors, or they can self-distribute (in most cases). The US has by far the most open access to markets for small beers of any country. And that’s the bottom line, regardless of what A-B does. -Harry