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Showing posts with label technomic. Show all posts

Monday, July 7, 2014

If Beer Sales Are Flat, Does That Mean Economy Is Stagnant Or Growing?

Beer Makers Hope July 4th Provides Fireworks to Spark Sluggish Sales

Thursday, 03 Jul 2014 07:17 AM

By Dan Weil

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The July 4 holiday is the most important part of the year for beer companies, especially this year because sales are sliding.

Approximately one-third of U.S. beer sales occur between Memorial Day and Labor Day, with the July 4th week generally posting sales 30 percent to 40 percent above normal, according to industry estimates, The Wall Street Journal reports.

So beer makers are going all out on their marketing efforts, including advertising scheduled around the World Cup soccer event.

Domestic beer shipments dipped 0.1 percent in the first five months of the year, although it dropped by more in recent years, according to the Beer Institute, an industry group.

The decline would have been more severe in 2014 if Anheuser-Busch InBev, which sells almost 50 percent of the beer consumed in the United States, didn't speed up shipments to distributors early in the year before reaching a labor agreement with the Teamsters union, The Journal reports.

"We are confident the U.S. economy is improving. As that economy improves, we do believe consumers will come back to beer," Molson Coors Chief Executive Peter Swinburn tells The Journal.

In an effort to draw consumers, brewers are combining beer with juice, lemonade and other non-alcoholic beverages, CBS Moneywatch reports. These concoctions are called shandys or radlers.

Changing consumer tastes have forced beer makers to make adjustments. "As consumer preferences evolve, the beer market landscape is changing," Eric Schmidt, director of research at Technomic, tells USA Today.

Beer drinkers are gravitating to imports and craft beers, flavored malt beverages and cider, he said.

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Sunday, December 22, 2013

The Hardest Business Category--Restaurants Get Hit Hard

24/7 Wall Street: Consumers Abandon Some Chain Restaurants

Wednesday, 18 Dec 2013 11:36 AM

By John Morgan

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Some of what were once among America's largest chain restaurants are now shells of their former selves, losing as much as 50 percent of their sales and closing hundreds of their locations.

Perhaps proving that what is not new is old hat, at least in the world of food franchises,24/7 Wall Street concluded some of the chains simply have not adapted to changing times and tastes.

Darren Tristano, executive vice president at Technomic, a restaurant industry research firm, said many of the struggling restaurants are victims of harsh competition. The majority of them are full-service restaurants.

The declining restaurant brands suffer from an aging image and business model, Tristano told 24/7 Wall Street.

“Today, if you’re not updating your restaurant within, say five to eight years of the previous update, you’re falling out of favor.”

Topping the list in shrinkage from 24/7 Wall Street — or perhaps hitting bottom the hardest — is Bennigan’s, which had posted a 90.4 percent drop in sales to $62 million by 2012, in the process shutting down 250 restaurants.

24/7 Wall Street said the pub-themed chain suffered from an “increasingly outdated brand” and at one point after filing bankruptcy closed all of its restaurants, and has since opened some new ones on a selective basis.

“They have tried to rebuild the prototype that’s more contemporary and on-target with trends,” Tristano said. “But to date, it really hasn’t blown the doors out or grown. They just continue to see some of the weaker links in the chain fall off and close down.”

Steakhouse chains have been hit especially hard in the chain restaurant category.

Lone Star Steakhouse, Ponderosa/Bonanza and Black Angus Steakhouse have all seen sales drop by more than 50 percent in recent years, 24/7 Wall Street reported.

Lone Star has shuttered 140 restaurants, Ponderosa/Bonanza has closed 238, and Black Angus has shut down 63 locations.

The restaurant chain struggle have not been confined to a particular cuisine. Other prominent decliners include TCBY, Tony Roma’s, Fazoli’s and Don Pablo’s.

The Financial Times reported the broader U.S. retail category also faces difficulty at the chain level.

“It takes two sides to make a transaction and at the root of retailers’ problems is a supply glut they have created themselves. They have built far more shops than Americans need,”the Times reported.
The Times said data from the International Council of Shopping Centers showed that in terms of shopping mall space per capita, Germany has 2.7 sq. ft. per person, Japan has 3.9 and the United Kingdom has 5. But for every American shopper, there is 23.8 sq. ft. of mall space per person.

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