While NY distrib Oak got termination notices from its top 2 suppliers, Heineken and Miller, Pennsy regional Yuengling (which has grown rapidly in recent yrs) just appointed Oak as its exclusive distrib in much of NY metro area.

Asked why AB not diving into lucrative bottled water biz, chairman August Busch told shareholder meeting that to make water biz investment profitable for AB,

Modelo exports (mainly Corona and almost 90% US) were up 23% in 1st qtr, “despite the US economic slowdown,” it said. Exports were 26% of Modelo volume, up from 24% last yr. Meanwhile, Femsa exports (mainly Tecate and Dos Equis) were up only 6%.

Among factors suggested by AB group veep Randy Baker for “very weak” Mar sales: weak economy, price increases, unfavorable weather in many states, some “year over year timing fac-tors such as changes in promotions and inventories.” But net-net, “quite frankly we really cannot analytically explain the weakness that occurred in March,” Randy told Wall St analysts. Despite Mar mystery, AB expects “return to more normal sales trends” for rest of 2001.

Beer volume in convenience stores--biggest off-premise channel--down 2.7% for 12 weeks thru Mar 17, reports ACNielsen. Dollar sales dipped 0.2%. Light beer biz held up: volume up 3.2%, $$ sales up nearly 6%. But other segments down: regular beer volume (including imports) down 7%, regular beer $$ sales down 4.4%. Stout, ale, malt liquor, no-alc brews down double-digits. Biz better elsewhere, according to ACNielsen. Supermarket volume was up 2.2% thru mid-Mar, $$ sales up 6%. Even-better trends in smaller channels: drug store biz up 20%+, sales in club stores jumped 65%+ on still-tiny base.

Coors had wide discrepancy between shipments and sales-to-retailers: shipments up 285,000 bbls, 5.9% in 1st qtr, but sales-to-retailers down 1.3%, not including Molson. So Coors built inventories by 300,000 bbls. As distribs draw down inventory, "could shave 3-5 percentage points off" 2nd qtr shipments. Chairman Pete called qtr

While AB shipments were up 500,000 bbls, 2.2% as it built inventories for peak-selling season, its sales-to-retailers were up just 0.3%. AB lowered its guidance for 2001 volume gains to 1.5-2.0% and expects 1% shipments gain in 2d qtr. Sales-to-retailers have "rebounded" in Apr so far, group veep Randy Baker told Wall St. analysts. AB

Two new studies add to evidence that moderate drinking has health benefits. One found moderate drinkers had lower risk of heart attack than abstainers, and if they did have heart attack, were likely to live longer after it. Second study found that elderly (avg age 73.7) who consumed up 1.5 drinks/day cut risk of heart failure nearly in half. Those 2 studies, published in Jnl of AMA got lotsa atten-tion. A 3d study didn

MADD prexy, Secy of Trans and Dubya (in letter) lauded distillers at Century Council press conference for sayin

Latest AB attempt at going after imports will be “Red Label from Budweiser,” reports Biz Week. Red Label will be “a more robust, slightly more bitter version” of Bud coming to NY and other im-port strongholds this fall. “Bud is clearly going after Heineken drinkers to stem a long decline,” but “Red Label may be a stretch for a beer positioned as a regular guy’s brew,” according to Biz Week .