Quotable.
Here are a couple of interesting quotes from the National Beer Wholesalers Association Convention in San Francisco as reported in this morning’s edition of Harry Schuhmacher’s invaluable Beer Business Daily.
First, wholesalers are urged to get feisty:
That was the money shot in a wide-ranging panel of high-end beer… It was uttered by Crown Imports’ Bill Hackett, who pointed out that “retailers are focused on more than volume…..why on earth would you put 30 packs in position A. I realize there’s a place for 30-packs in the market, but put it out back behind the dumpster where it’s hard to find….make the consumer work for it…..wholesalers tell me, ‘Well, that was a deal created between the brewer and the retailer.’ Hey, I say, this is your marketplace!” he boomed. ” These are your accounts.”
Then one of the panelists, some fella named Sam Calagione, spread the good word to an audience which needs to hear it over and over again:
“We’re not big believers in big ad spending…we let the beer sell itself. That’s why we have 28 styles of beer….. It’s just me and five sales people….For 20 bucks you can walk into any liquor store and buy one or maybe two six packs of the best beer….. High end beer is a more affordable connoisseurship than wine.”
And finally, from a section later in the issue headlined A-B: WE WON’T CHANGE YOUR CONTRACT, this memorable bit related to the current wholesalers-up-in-arms reaction to the new MillerCoors distribution contract:
According to sources, A-B brass told distributors that, unlike MillerCoors, A-B would keep the same contract. One A-B distributor told BBD under condition of anonymity that “it’s a strange day in the industry when Anheuser-Busch is making Miller[Coors] look like…” jerks.
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