Much as the wider economic landscape continues to provide turbulence, for alcohol brand owners, the three months to the end of September showed some semblance of relative normality. The blinding growth rates for sales in the previous quarter – recall Moet Hennessy posted a 30% top-line leap – became a little more comprehensible in Q3.
That said, with most companies forecasting mid-to-high-single-digit lifts for their full-year sales, more manageable hikes appear to be in the offing in the months ahead.
In the third quarter of 2022, several brand owners – namely, Diageo, Distell, Suntory Holdings and Treasury Wine Estates – haven’t made our chart, although this is purely on the basis that they report their figures on a half-year basis than quarterly. We can expect their return in three months’ time.
Top of the pops was Tequila powerhouse Cuervo, which retained its +20% rate from Q2 into the third quarter. While the Jose Cuervo brand was up 15%, the 42% leap in sales by value for the company's 'Other Tequilas' business, which comprises higher-end expressions, underlined Cuervo's claim in October that "people are drinking better".
Heineken's appearance - a brewer, no less! - just behind Cuervo would have been more impressive had CEO Dolf van den Brink not used the words "softness" and "slowdown" in his results commentary. Much as the comments were wholly realistic, against a backdrop of pandemic and supply-chain year-prior comparables, the markets seized on the quotes, resulting in a share price slip from EUR88.18 to EUR83.42 on the day of the announcement.
Taking the bronze in Q3 was Campari Group, which credited the sunny summer in the Northern Hemisphere for its +19% showing. Company lead Bob Kunze-Concewitz showed Heineken's van den Brink how to do it, preferring to hail the +47% jump in Campari's year-to-date compared to the same period in pre-COVID 2019. Adding a further glisten was the same-day announcement of a stake purchase in Catalyst Spirits after Campari bought into the start-up's Howler Head flavoured Bourbon brand two months earlier.
Leapfrogging the middle of the pack, where sales for the likes of Moet Hennessy, Anheuser-Busch InBev and Pernod Ricard increased between 16% and 11%, and the plus-single-digit laggards held steady on the previous quarter. Concha y Toro, Molson Coors Beverage Co and Boston Beer Co all made the bottom four [with Treasury Wine Estates] in Q2, and the three propped up the chart again three months later.
Concha y Toro tempered its strongest quarter of the year so far - up 9% - with reference to "the new cost reality" facing wine producers. Worth watching going forward, then, will be not only the group's sales performances but also its likely margin declines. Will the Casillero del Diablo brand owner's marketing spend bear the brunt in 2023?
And, while Molson Coors can safely be described as a company in transition these days - A historical reliance on the on-premise sales channel and the lower-premium end of beer's price spectrum hasn't helped performance so far this decade - the group had Boston Beer to thank for bringing up the rear. The Truly hard seltzer brand owner's start to the year, when Q1 sales were hammered, continues to drag on 2022, yet hope remains that the company's tie-up with PepsiCo for Hard Mountain Dew continues to demonstrate "positive ... progress".
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