- Second-quarter sales rise 2.2% year-on-year, hitting US$616.2m
- Pricing drives quarterly lift
- Sales in first six months of 2022 decline 8.8% to $1.05bn
- Truly brand revival centres around switching to real fruit juice
A return to sales growth in the most recent quarter has failed to bring 2022 into parity with last year for The Boston Beer Co.
The company, which has found great success with its Truly hard seltzer brand in the US, has reported a single-digit lift in sales from the three months to the end of June. However, a slump of just over 21% in the first quarter of this year meant that the half-year performance came in down by almost 9% on the corresponding period in 2021.
The group, which had until recently leaned on its flagship Samuel Adams beer brand, is looking to replicate Truly's strong domestic showing with Hard Mountain Dew, which launched earlier this year as a result of Boston Beer's tie-up 11 months ago with brand owner PepsiCo.
In the meantime, the company bemoaned the current state of the hard seltzer category in the US. "The continuing decline of the hard seltzer segment, which was down 17% in volume and 13% in value in off-premise channels in Q2, is deeper than previously expected," said founder Jim Koch on a post-results conference call yesterday. "This impacted our second-quarter results and is expected to continue to impact Truly's performance for the balance of 2022."
Also on the call, CEO Dave Burwick admitted that hard seltzer continues to prove challenging: "The category's become very complicated," he told analysts. "We thought by now the long tail would be gone and there'd be less of the sameness that exists out there. It's not there yet."
As well as pinning future hopes on the 5% ABV version of Mountain Dew, Boston Beer is also planning to "turn around the trends on Truly" by "optimising our core original flavours with real fruit juice".
Hard seltzer, which uses malt as the base for its alcohol content, has found favour in the US in recent years both with consumers, thanks to its lower calorie content than traditional alcohol products, and with brand owners as a result of its low taxation levels in the US relative to spirit-based alcoholic beverages.
For The Boston Beer Co's official Q2 & H1 results statement, click here.
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