Back when then-ceo Brent Willis was building New Age Beverage into a multisector brand incubator, the DSD arm in Denver that gave the publicly traded co its name was viewed as playing a crucial role in getting brands like Xingtea, Aspen Pure water and Coco Libre coconut water to retail in early-adopter market. But the strategy never really panned out, Willis eventually deemed the bev brands too trivial and they were spun off as he transformed the company into a multilevel marketer of supplements. The DSD arm had no meaningful role in that new strategy, but NBEV brass insisted it was a keeper, even as Willis abruptly exited without explanation back in Jan (BBI, Jan 11).

Push is back on to clean up national parks and public lands as Interior Secretary Deb Haaland issued order yesterday to "phase out the sale of single-use plastics" in those spaces by 2032, per CNBC. Order directs dept to ID "nonhazardous, environmentally preferable alternatives to single-use plastic products," such as compostable or biodegradable materials, or 100% recycled materials. Single-use plastic products included in order comprise plastic and polystyrene food/bev containers, bottles, straws, cups, cutlery and disposable plastic bags. Recall, some national parks banned sales of PET water bottles back in 2011, but Trump administration rolled back that ban in 2017. That restriction "resulted in the removal of up to 2 million water bottles per year," per gov't report. This new measure is estimated to help reduce "the more than 14 million tons of plastic" that end up in oceans. "The Interior Department has an obligation to play a leading role in reducing the impact of plastic waste on our ecosystem and our climate," Haaland said in statement. "Today's order will ensure that the Department's sustainability plans include bold action on phasing out single-use products as we seek to protect our natural environment and communities around them." Announcement was timed to World Ocean Day yesterday. Of course, 10-year timeframe leaves plenty of room for subsequent administration to reverse plan again.

There was no avoiding an increase in the national drinking age to 21 any longer, INSIGHTS reported this week in 1984. Bill had just passed the House by wide margin and had backing of President Reagan. Brewers decided not to oppose minimum drinking age for all of US, while NBWA board had recently decided to oppose it and Wine Institute came out in favor. Many supporters of a national 21 drinking age argued it would reduce consumption, but that was not necessarily going to be the case, noted INSIGHTS. Our report showed per capita consumption in four adjacent states had different minimum ages: Kan (18), Ia (19), Neb (20) and Mo (21). Missouri and Iowa still had the same per capita consumption rate and Neb had the highest among those states. President Reagan signed the 21 min age into law in July.

German brewers are dealing with an "unprecedented" shortage of bottles that has caused "the price of bottles" to explode, reported NY Times. "The issue is not so much a lack of bottles," but rather getting beer drinkers to return their empties. "Germany's roughly 1,500 breweries have up to four billion returnable glass bottles in circulation - about 48 for every man, woman and child," in the country, per NYT. But apparently the hassle of lugging crates of bottles back is outweighing incentive of the 8 euro cent deposit and "people tend to let them stack up, in the basements of their homes or on the balconies of their apartments, biding their time until they are running out of either space or spare cash." Besides all those empties sitting out there, German brewers report bottle supply has really tightened because of shutdowns stemming from invasion of Ukraine. Brewers without long-term supply deals in place are facing 80% surge in bottle prices currently. Germany's natl brewers assn took to TV, radio and social media to urge folks to return their empties so brewers have enough to fill for summer season.

As AB's Nutrl vodka seltzer aims to amplify natl rollout, brand is asking consumers to "upgrade their seltzers" and leave behind the "basic beverages of their past." That move's meant to go hand-in-hand with young adults "graduating" to next stage of life, like upgrading from shared apartment to living solo. So new campaign features branded "Upgrade Your Seltzer" sweepstakes, co announced, offering 1 winner chance at $15K in rent money and yr's supply of Nutrl. Legal age consumers can enter by following brand on social media and commenting with hashtag #UpgradeYourSeltzer and #Sweepstakes. It went live June 7, ends June 24. And to celebrate "graduation to a better tasting hard seltzer," Nutrl hosted a Seltzer Graduation party at NYC's Hudson Yards on Tues, with SNL's Chris Redd delivering spoof commencement speech.

Lawsuits involving big brewers keep poppin’ up here, there and everywhere. Latest dispute involves military base territory dist rights, as B. Fernandez & Hnos, filed suit against AB for alleged wrongful termination without cause, per Jun 7 filing and Law360 report. B Fernandez estimates damages for “unjust termination” that exceed $10 mil for “illegal termination…consisting of lost benefits and loss of goodwill,” and seeks another $10+ mil for “the impairment of the sales,” for breaching state law. Or “alternatively,” a total of $30+ mil for breach of contract, “negligent acts,” and “deceitful conduct and acts or omissions…in total disregard of the rights and property of B. Fernandez,” plus an order for “strict compliance of the contract between parties.” And B. Fernandez sez it’s “entitled” to preliminary injunction under state law Act 21, “preserving the contractual relationship…until the case is decided on the merits.” AB’s actions “constitute bad faith as they are neither based upon commercial judgment nor involve an exercise of business discretion,” co alleges. At least one of those estimated $10+ mil damage charges would be removed if AB agreed to “comply with the exclusive sales representation agreement…and not allow the servicing of A-B products in Military Installations by anyone else, including A-B, except through B. Fernandez,” per suit.

While B. Fernandez has been AB distrib in Puerto Rico “for many decades,” and has received awards “on multiple occasions,” it also formed a “separate and distinct” partnership to become “exclusive sales representative for all of its beverage products sold in the United States military installations,” which began in Aug 2018. AB decided not to extend written agreement in early 2020, but B. Fernandez “continued to uninterruptedly provide its services as A-B’s exclusive sales representative in the Military Installations” thruout. Yet after hearing rumors that AB planned to terminate B. Fernandez in military base territory, the distrib’s sales veep reached out to AB on May 25, and co informed them “that indeed A-B had decided to terminate the relationship” in favor of servicing those territories “with its own personnel.” AB believes Act 21 of Puerto Rico law, which protects beer distribs from termination without cause, does not apply in this case “because the expired written agreement provided that New York law was applicable law” and “even if Act 21 applied,” AB has right to assume “on its own the services provided by B. Fernandez.” B. Fernandez of course disagrees, and quickly went into legal action. AB is now ordered to answer complaint by no later than Jun 24.

Editor’s note: AB reduced wholly owned dist volume in US in recent yrs, falling to just 7% of AB volume as of early 2022 (see Feb 1 issue). So this would be a bit of a change-up from recent trend.

Yesterday, AB put Bud Light creative account up for review and agency Wieden+Kennedy (Bud Light agency since Jul 2015) declined to participate, according to reports in Adweek and Ad Age. Tho AB stayed with Wieden+Kennedy for almost 7 yrs, following period when it had shuffled agencies several times in several yrs, results got even worse for Bud Light on Wieden+Kennedy's watch. Bud Light dropped 10.7 mil bbls, 29% from 2015-2021. Fell from an estimated 36.7 mil bbls in 2015 to 26 mil bbls last yr. All the line extensions in the world didn't come close to making up for that giant loss. That's more than the 10 mil bbls or so that total AB down during same period. Sure, AB got a pop from Bud Light Seltzer, but now that is trending down sharply too. And Bud Light blue down again in 2022, volume down 9.9% in NielsenIQ data thru May 28. Time for a change.

After undertaking key tweaks to product proposition, including move to completely alcohol-free recipes, Ceria Brewing has unveiled new look that still pays homage to Roman harvest goddess Ceres, who inspired brand name, but offers up palette of earthy purple, blue and green tones that seem offer more modern, category-neutral appeal. As reported, Colorado-based cannabev producer founded by Keith Villa had found patent-pending way to produce products without even the trace amount of alcohol below 0.5% ABV that's allowed for "non-alcoholic" designation that some consumers view as insufficient (BBI, Mar 28). So he's cut over to those formulations for both the cannabis-infused entries that co was created to pursue and for the uninfused versions that came along once deregulation proved slow to proceed. They include Grainwave AF Belgian White (the AF stands for alcohol-free - what else did you think it meant?), available with or without 5 mg of THC, and Indiewave IPA (AF), offered with or without 10 mg THC and 10 mg of CBD. In synch with recent trends in space, Ceria also is playing up presence of key terpenes in each formula, limonene and linalo in Grainwave, and myrcene and humulene in Indiewave, which offer inflammation- and stress-alleviating functional benefits. The uninfused entries by now have entered mainstream retailers like Total Wine, HEB, Target and Buffalo Wild Wings at $9.99 per 6-pk, while the THC-infused versions are offered via dispensary channel in Colo and Calif so far at $8 per can. After graphics redo, Grainwave is packed in muted blue can while Indiewave gets subtle green hue.