Easter Beer Sales are out

TLDR: Bud Light got crushed.

“SCAN DATA SHOW BL DIP IN WEEK 1. Thanks to our friends at Bump Williams Consulting via NielsenIQ, BBD got an early look at sales data for Bud Light-Gate: Week 1 (which is year-over-year for the week ending 04/08 for all off-premise channels, xAOC + liq + cstore.)

DOLLARS. Nationally for the week leading up to the Easter/Passover weekend and after the social media post heard around the country (and has 170k likes), Bud Light dollar sales were down 6.9% year-over-year, versus the domestic premium category being up 3% and the entire beer/seltzer category up 5.6% (don’t forget we have easy comps due to Easter timing). While anecdotally on social media it was assumed Coors Light was the main beneficiary of BL’s fallout, it was up ‘only’ 10.7% for the week, while its cousin from Milwaukee, Miller Lite, was up a big 16.9%.

VOLUME. For case volume it’s worse: Bud Light was down 10.7% versus the domestic premium category was down 1.3%, while Coors Light was up 5.5% and Miller Lite up 11.7%. Bud Light lost 3.7 points of share of the domestic premium category in a week.”