A lot of Sapporo's acquisitions over the past few decades seem to indicate they prioritize strategic supply chain access over anything else. And that makes sense. It's easier to buy an established brewery with established supply chains and market access in a foreign country and use that as a boardwalk into the market rather than trying to figure it out from scratch. And Sapporo has clearly done well.
But I can't see what they're getting out of owning a brewery in San Francisco in this day and age. Globally, beer consumption is way down. They're already supplying most of their addressable American market with beer they produce in and export from Canada. It makes sense to me that they'd want to cut their losses here.
And as decent as Anchor has been, it's a wildly saturated market out there. Unless SF makes a U-turn recovery in the next year or two I can't really see how this ends well for Anchor.
Out of curiosity, who drinks Sapporo? I've occasionally seen it at sushi houses of course, like Maneki in Seattle, but that's not going to be the volume that drives buying out regional breweries. Is there a big west coast immigrant Japanese community that drinks it habitually in mass market quantity like the American market drinks domestics? None of my east Asian American friends really drink to speak of, at least not where I can see.
v common in canada, fresh bc it's made locally and often a cheaper menu option than other similar options. it's not popular w the japanese friends i know at least.
> In terms of domestic sales, about 64.2 billion U.S. dollars were registered in off-premise retail sales. Only 43.8 billion dollars in on-premise sales were recorded in 2021. While this is an increase from the large decline in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it is still below pre-pandemic levels.
> Craft rebounded in 2021 and saw its largest share of the beer market ever even though dollar sales of craft beer remained below their peak. This indicates that although Americans are drinking less beer overall, they are more often opting for craft brews.
I mean, what did you expect from a product category that was basically born of the question "how can we use modern food science to create a product that appeals to vodka-soda drinkers, but falls under the tax regime of a beer?"
Also they already own Stone Brewing also in California. Seems like Anchor’s brewing capacity and existing supply chains does not benefit them much in addition to what Stone already provides.
But I can't see what they're getting out of owning a brewery in San Francisco in this day and age. Globally, beer consumption is way down. They're already supplying most of their addressable American market with beer they produce in and export from Canada. It makes sense to me that they'd want to cut their losses here.
And as decent as Anchor has been, it's a wildly saturated market out there. Unless SF makes a U-turn recovery in the next year or two I can't really see how this ends well for Anchor.