In the name of supporting craft producers, a new Treasury Department report questions the very state laws that permitted the craft boom, some argue.
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The California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control is investigating whether or not Amazon’s Los Angeles location meets state qualifications for a liquor store. Amazon intends to focus on delivering alcohol giving the online corporation a competitive advantage over California alcohol retailers who must pay for staff, stocking, and real estate.
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Earlier this month, Constellation Brands, maker of Corona, Svedka, and Robert Mondavi wines, invested $4 billion in the largest pot corporation in the world, by market cap. The deal expands Constellation’s ownership stake in Canadian Canopy Growth Corp from 9.9 percent to 38 percent and includes warrants to eventually own over 50 percent.
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A frenzy of deal-making is remaking the food delivery app business. In January, UberEats acquired Ando, a food delivery startup founded by celebrity chef David Chang. In early March, Japanese conglomerate Softbank invested $535 million into DoorDash. A few weeks later, Grubhub expanded its partnership with the review site Yelp to facilitate ordering home delivery of restaurant meals. Meanwhile, the tech publication ReCode reported last week, DoorDash and Postmates have discussed merging.
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Anheuser-Busch InBev was consistently in the news last year as it closed its blockbuster $100 billion acquisition of SABMiller. But beyond headline-generating deals, the brewer is finding new ways to expand its reach, particularly in the craft sector. The company’s wholly-owned venture capital firm has been quietly investing in beer ratings websites, delivery services, and international craft brewers—an indication that, despite cuts to its domestic craft acquisition program, the mega-brewer is finding yet more ways to put pressure on the independent and craft beer sector.
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Anheuser-Busch InBev, the largest beer producer in the world, is taking another shot at the American craft brewing industry, this time by cornering the market on some key ingredients independent brewers need to make quality beer. The company last week announced that they would no longer be exporting hops from their South African hop farms to U.S. craft brewers, as promised, and would instead be redirecting the hops toward their own in-house brands.
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A recent decision by the South Carolina Supreme Court will overturn a 72-year-old restriction on how many licenses a liquor retailer in the state can hold. The case was brought by Total Wine & More, a Maryland-based liquor retailer with over 150 “big box” stores in 20 states. Now, small retailers fear they will be forced out of business as larger companies become the dominant liquor retailers in the state.
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North Carolina is home to a booming craft beer industry, including Highland Brewing Company and Olde Mecklenberg. But the growing power of the independent breweries has put them at odds with an increasingly consolidated distribution and wholesale industry in the state. In response, the brewers are backing a bill that would raise the amount of beer they could distribute on their own before having to contract with a distributor.
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Anheuser-Busch InBev is angling to control every shelf of your local beer store, and they’re doing it behind the scenes. That may seem surprising, given that the Belgian company has made headlines this year with its nearly complete $108 billion acquisition of SABMiller, the second-largest beer company in the world. But many in the industry see control over distribution, even more than deals, as the real source of ABI’s growing market power. And though the Department of Justice’s July approval of the merger seems to promote competition and place checks on the company’s pursuit of growth, those checks may not prove strong enough to rein in the beer giant.
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Perdue, one of the four biggest chicken companies in the U.S., last week announced plans to improve quality of life for their chickens and to kill them more humanely. Although the plans have largely been seen as a step forward in animal welfare, three big questions remain: how much will it cost to meet these new standards, who will foot the bill, and when exactly will the reforms happen?
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