It is my contention that craft brewers have taken market share and sales away from the largest brewers in the industry. I will use two companies to perform this analysis, Boston Beer and Anheuser-Busch.
Pricing & Competition in the Beer Industry:
A close look at Microbreweries and Industry Giants
Abstract: The beer industry in the United States is continually changing and therefore companies in this industry must be versatile. Their versatility comes in a variety of forms, from changing their product offering, to changing their strategic goals, and finally, recognizing opportunities and threats. This paper explores many aspects of the industry though the use of Porter's five forces model. I will analyze the internal rivalry present in the industry, any buyer or supplier power that is present, entry barriers that exist, and any substitutes and threats that face the industry. Furthermore, I will closely analyze the effect that craft brewers and microbreweries have had on the industry. It is my contention that craft brewers have taken market share and sales away from the largest brewers in the industry. I will use two companies to perform this analysis, Boston Beer and Anheuser-Busch. Anheuser-Busch is the largest brewer in the world and Boston Beer is the largest craft brewer in the United States. I have run a regression using sales from both companies and several other factors to test my hypothesis.
Recent History and Terms
The brewing industry in the United States began in 1625 when the first brewery in America was founded. Lager beer as we know it today has changed a lot since then, and so has the industry. In the early nineteenth century the industry was highly fragmented, and competition among different breweries only existed in small geographic circles. It was not until the late nineteenth century that refrigeration and mechanical pasteurization revolutionized the industry. Companies could now transport beer across previous geographical limits.
After prohibition was repealed in 1933, the industry as it is today began to take shape. There was a sharp decline in the number of brewing companies, almost 90% from 1947 to 1995 as illustrated in Table 1. This was mostly due to four major breweries growing rapidly and realizing economies of scale, while the majority of other brewers became bankrupt. By 1980 Anheuser-Busch, Miller Brewing, Pabst, and Stroh's were the four breweries that constituted nearly 80% of the market. By the mid-nineties three brewers constituted most of the market: Coors, Miller, and Anheuser-Busch.1
Although dominated by the three aforementioned brewers, the US industry consists of 1,800 brewers and beer importers, 2,200 beer wholesalers, and 560,000 retail establishments. The industry includes packaging manufacturers, shipping companies, agriculture, and other businesses whose livelihood depends on the brewing. The industry employs approximately 1.66 million Americans, paying them $47 billion in wages and benefits. The industry pays $27 billion in business, personal and consumption taxes, including $5.1 billion in excise taxes.2
This paper focuses on Anheuser-Busch, which currently holds 51% of the market share, as chart 1 shows. Anheuser-Busch provides a good benchmark on which to gauge price variances, competition, and demand. This paper also discusses various types of beer and tiers of beer producers. The different types of beer are: "super-premium", "premium", and "economy" beer. Each one describes a different price point for beer, super-premium is the most expensive and economy is the least expensive. There are generally three tiers of beer suppliers in the United States: domestic behemoths like A-B and Miller, importers, and craft brewers. This paper will focus on the 1st and 3rd tiers and all the different types of beers.
Anheuser-Busch
Founded in 1852, Anheuser-Busch has a deep tradition setting the pace in the beer market. From a modest brewery that produced 8,000 barrels a year, Anheuser-Busch has evolved into an enormous conglomerate whose breweries now produce over 100 million barrels a year. Currently the largest brewer in the world, it owns over 50% of the market in the United States. Anheuser-Busch also owns amusement parks around the United States (Busch Gardens and Sea World), bottling companies, metal stamping companies, shipping companies, and a variety of packaging companies.
Anheuser-Busch has been a publicly traded company since 1875 and today is still a staple of the New York Stock Exchange. Anheuser-Bush has consistently outperformed the S&P 500, as can be seen in Chart 4. Its return on equity in 2003 was 78.7% while the industry and the S&P 500 were 24.2 and 13.7 respectively.3 Anheuser-Busch outperforms the industry and the S&P 500 on many other levels as well. Anheuser-Busch currently enjoys a net income growth rate of 10.5% over the last three years while the industry lags at 7.5%. The S&P 500 experienced a negative growth rate for the last three years. Anheuser-Busch also enjoys larger profit margins than the industry and the S&P 500. Financial information not covered in this portion of this paper is provided by Valueline in the Appendix under table 3.
Anheuser-Busch obviously outperforms the industry and the S&P 500 in most facets of the market place. Its sales, currently above $16 billion, are unmatched in the industry. It has continued to be innovative in all the businesses they own, which is made apparent later in this paper. This has allowed them to grow faster than competitors and stay ahead of the pack by large margins. Anheuser-Busch is the benchmark around which this paper is built.3
Porter's Five Forces Model and Market Structure
This paper focuses heavily on Porter's five forces model for evaluating the beer industry. The Porter model consists of five variables that are used to analyze an industry: internal competition, entry barriers, supplier power, buyer power, and substitutes and compliments. The model was developed by Michael Porter, a Harvard Business School professor. As stated before, this paper will use Anheuser-Busch as a benchmark to analyze the industry.
Entry and Internal Competition in the Brewing Market
When analyzing any industry, the ease at which newcomers can enter the market is of great importance. If there are high entry barriers, due to economies of scale, government intervention, hostile takeovers, or high concentration, inefficiency exists and the company on top can realize monopolistic gains. However, if there are no entry barriers, companies will not be able to raise prices and realize profits.
As with any five forces analysis, there is a need to define the market. For the purpose of this paper, the focus is on domestic brewers. I will mention international influences but my analysis, except the concentration analysis, will not include any markets outside of the United States.
Economies of Scale
The brewing industry is rather different from many industries because it is not governed by patent law or exclusive grants. The inputs required to brew beer are not controlled by a majority firm and the supply of brewing materials is quite fragmented. There are, however, large costs associated with entering this industry. The task of establishing a supplier network to efficiently distribute the product is extremely difficult. Furthermore, it has been estimated that the construction of a four to five million barrel a year plant would cost around $250 million.1 This is simply the fixed cost of building and maintaining the brewery. There is even greater cost in the marketing activities needed to distribute the beer. Any entrant would have to invest heavily to establish a strong reputation and brand awareness. It will be made clear later the exact importance marketing plays in the brewing industry.
There is a reason why it costs so much to build and maintain a brewery in the United States. Table 2 illustrates this point very well; observe that there has been a significant decrease in breweries below the four million barrel mark. On the other hand, breweries that produce above four million barrels have increased 1000%. A reason for this is the economies of scale that exist in the industry. However, to realize these economies, a brewer would have to produce at minimum two to three million barrels a year. Chart 2 illustrates this point further.
Microbreweries / Craft Beer & the Regression Model
Table 2 does show an increase in breweries that produce between 1,000 and 10,000 barrels. This is mainly due to the presence of microbreweries and brewpubs. From 1986 to 1998 the amount of microbreweries in the United States has more than tripled.1 This is an oddity in the brewing industry because de novo entry, or new entry, into the industry since World War II has been limited.
During the late 1980's early 1990's the craft brewing industry or the microbrewing industry experienced double digit leaps in volume and sales growth. While this number has decreased sizably in the last couple of years, there is still growth to be realized in this brewing segment. In 2003 the malt beverage market was down for the first time in many years by .9%. The craft brewing segment, however, saw an increase in volume of 1.7%. "While there is some level of competition among brewers, most realize that they're all in this together.", states Beverage World columnist Jeff Cioletti. Mr. Cioletti speaks of the millions of small craft breweries in America and their objective to carve out market share in the beer market. Collectively the craft beer segment has a 3% share of the domestic beer market, however; according to John Bryant, a craft brewer, "Our (the craft brewing industry) goal is to take craft beer from 3 percent of the beer consumption in the US up to 10." Chart 9 demonstrates that this may be possible if the industry can keep the 11% growth it has experienced over the last six years.4
It may seem that the proliferation of craft brewers and microbrews in the United States may have brewers like Anheuser-Busch concerned. As it turns out, the opposite is true. Greg Hipp, General Manager of an Anheuser-Busch wholesaler in Toledo, Ohio, states that Anheuser-Busch has embraced the new wave of microbreweries. He stated that microbreweries and craft beers have brought about a new awareness of beer and that helps the whole industry. There are many indicators that this statement is true. Chart 3 is a graph of the sale of malt beverages over the last thirty-four years. The upward ...
This is a preview of the whole essay
It may seem that the proliferation of craft brewers and microbrews in the United States may have brewers like Anheuser-Busch concerned. As it turns out, the opposite is true. Greg Hipp, General Manager of an Anheuser-Busch wholesaler in Toledo, Ohio, states that Anheuser-Busch has embraced the new wave of microbreweries. He stated that microbreweries and craft beers have brought about a new awareness of beer and that helps the whole industry. There are many indicators that this statement is true. Chart 3 is a graph of the sale of malt beverages over the last thirty-four years. The upward trend indicates that as an industry, brewers are doing well. Anheuser-Busch enjoys the same success as chart 5 and chart 6 suggests. Note in table 7 that the market share for Anheuser-Busch has increased over the last decade to an estimated value of 51%. It seems microbreweries have not hindered its bottom line significantly. Perhaps craft brews are a compliment to Anheuser-Busch's product offering.
To better gauge the effect that the craft brew segment has had on the sales of Anheuser-Busch, I have developed two regressions.5 The regressions are models to measure how different environmental factors in the beer industry and macroeconomic factors affect the sales of Anheuser-Busch beer. The time frame for both models is 1989 through 2002 and all data is annual data. The first model independent variables are: barrels sold of Boston Beer (a small craft brewer), total personal income, total US population, and the CPI-U. The second model adjusts personal income by dividing the values of personal income for a given year by that year's CPI-U. Furthermore, an additional variable was added to the second regression, total tax paid, which measures the amount of federal excise tax paid that year by all brewers. The dependent variable in both regressions is total barrels sold of Anheuser-Busch beer within the United States. The results from the regressions can be seen in table 6 in the appendix.
I will begin by describing the results from the first regression. I have postulated that microbreweries have an effect on the sales of Anheuser-Busch beer. Mr. Hipp from Anheuser-Busch seemed not to think this is true, however; the results from the regression do not verify Mr. Hipp. The coefficient on "Barrels of Boston Beer Sold" is in fact negative, but there are several other factors to keep in mind. The p-value for this particular independent variable is .0133, which indicates that this value is not significantly different from zero. Another gauge of significance is the variables T-Stat, which is obtained by dividing the coefficient by the standard error. The T-Stat for this variable is -3.074 which is greater than two. This means that "Barrels of Boston Beer Sold" is significant and does affect the sales of Anheuser-Busch beer. The coefficient can be interpreted as the following: for every one barrel of Boston Beer Sold, A-B produces 6.3 less barrels.
There are only two other variables with significant T-Stats, personal income and CPI-U. The coefficient for CPI-U is extremely large due to the fact that values used for CPI-U are small and the values used for barrels of Anheuser-Busch beer sold are extremely high. The positive coefficient means that as prices in the CPI-U basket of goods increase, the amount of barrels Anheuser-Busch sells increases. One conclusion that can be drawn from this is that beer is price inelastic; however, this topic will be discussed later in this paper.
The last coefficient with a significant T-Stat is personal income. The coefficient on this variable is .0028 and the T-Stat is 2.11. The coefficient indicates that as personal income increases, the amount of barrels of A-B beer sold increases. The amount of barrelage increase is very small due to the small coefficient. Yet, because this coefficient is significant, I can conclude that beer is a normal good.
The second regression yields very interesting results. Under this regression, "Barrels of Boston Beer Sold" still has a negative coefficient of -1.124, but this time the T-Stat is -.21. This is insignificant and we cannot conclude that the coefficient is different from zero. This regression yields no significant independent variables.
Concentration
It may seem odd that a company of Anheuser-Busch's size is allowed by the government to maintain such a huge portion of the market. There are many reasons for their great success, much of which will be discussed later in this paper. There are also governmental factors that need to be addressed, which will also be discussed later in the paper. It appears that this industry is extremely concentrated at the top, and in fact this is true. Table 4 illustrates this point. Notice that the HHI in 1998 is well above 1,800, which is the generally accepted number to signify extremely high concentration. Table 5 is an independent analysis of industry concentration done with sales information from 2003.3 This analysis is global and contains seventeen of the largest companies, not just the top five as the previous analysis. The HHI was 1,208.21. An HHI between 1,200 and 1,800 indicates that the industry is concentrated. This analysis also indicates that this industry is concentrated.
There are many factors that contribute to the increase in market concentration as demonstrated by table 4. As stated before in table 2, the number of breweries has decreased dramatically since World War II. However, the size of the market increases almost every day. Apart from the 3% market share that craft brewers like Boston Beer have carved out for themselves, the majority of this expanding market has gone to the biggest brewers, namely Anheuser-Busch. Chart 5 shows the market share of the top four brewers in the United States.6 Notice that the next closest Company to Anheuser-Busch is Miller at 19%. It would seem that Anheuser-Busch is in a position to dominate the industry. This could be true, but nothing in the way Anheuser-Busch prices products or promotes them is monopolistic in nature. There is still heavy competition with marketing dollars and among different product offerings, but this will be discussed later in the paper.
Market Trends
Clearly the economic impact that microbreweries and craft breweries have had on Anheuser-Busch has been minimal at least. However, this does not mean that Anheuser-Busch is being idol due to their massive success. For instance, in 2002 there was a big surge in the "malternative" segment which accounted for a 23.8% increase in volume and a 30.3% increase in sales.7 Malternatives are alcoholic beverages like Anheuser-Busch and Bacardi's Bacardi Silver which is said to be, "one of a small handful - less than 10 - that will hang on as these (malternatives) shake out." (Tom Pirko, Bevmark LLC)8 Anheuser-Busch has recognized the demand for products like this early and has used innovation to position itself to make gains. The same is true for other market trends, as is the case with Michelob Ultra.
Anheuser-Busch was the first to realize the large demand for "Atkins" friendly beer. The "Atkins" diet is a low carbohydrate diet intended for lazy Americans to lose weight quickly. Standard premium beer like Budweiser is loaded with calories and carbohydrates and therefore is not allowed on the "Atkins" diet. The introduction of Michelob Ultra is a response to this untapped demand. Anheuser-Busch has seen great success in this product even though it sells at super-premium prices. They have also seen success marketing Ultra to the male audience even though light beers were traditionally consumed by females.8
Anheuser-Busch according to Pirko, "Continue to be innovative and creative domestically and internationally. They're not just sitting around doing nothing.", and this is certainly true. International sales of American beer have seen a dramatic increase over the past decade due to emerging markets like China. Once again Anheuser-Busch has led the charge of American breweries selling abroad, by marketing beer in over eighty countries. Anheuser-Busch also owns a 50% stake in Grupo Modelo, Mexico's largest brewer, and by 2010 they plan to own a 27% stake in China's larges brewer, Tsingtao Brewery. So far they have seen increased success abroad as their international profits have grown 13% from 2001 to 2002.5
Anheuser-Busch has also had its hand in the craft brew market. As stated previously, craft brews have not seriously affected the market share of Anheuser-Busch. However, Anheuser-Busch is not and was not one to wait and see if this market would explode in its face. In the mid 90's Anheuser-Busch acquired 30% of Redhook Brewery and the exclusive rights to distribute their beer. While this venture has not proven to be extremely profitable, it is just another testimony of Anheuser-Busch attempting to stay ahead of the curve.
Buyer / Supplier Power & Internal Competition
At first glance, it may seem that the beer market possesses an extraordinary amount of supplier power. This is a highly concentrated industry with the top three brewers constituting over 75% of the industries sales. Even more, Anheuser-Busch controls just over 50% of the market share, which seems to put it in a commanding position. In the past, however, there is no indication that any of the top three producers have experienced unreasonable gains. Nor has there been any indication of price collusion in the past.
The fact is, even though concentration is high, there is intense competition in the industry. There is competition on many different levels in the beer industry. Price, of course, is always a factor in competition; however there are many other non-price variables in the beer market. New product innovation, promotional activities, distribution networks, packaging, and brand equity, are all different levels in which companies in the industry compete.
Product Differentiation
With all this intense competition among brewers, it would seem that the buyer is in a good position. The buyer should have the power to demand the lowest price. However, brewers combat this pressure on downward prices with product differentiation. If a brewer can convince a consumer, through promotional activities and creative positioning, that one beer is better than another, than that beer can be sold for a higher price. Product differentiation does exist in the beer industry. However, the way a product is differentiated in this market is a little different than in other industries. First, it has been concluded in several studies that, in general, people cannot tell the difference between brands of beer. Second, more expensive brands do not cost proportionately more to make than "economy" beer.1 In the beer industry differentiation is achieved through promotion and the place a certain brand occupies in the mind of the consumer.
Anheuser-Busch is probably the most competent of beer producers at differentiating their product. Analysts at Morgan Stanley Dean Witter comment that "the strength of A-B's growing demographic of legal-aged young drinkers and A-B's effective marketing campaigns will allow for the brewers brands to consistently gain market share."6 Remember that the beginning of this paper spoke about three different price points with beer: the super-premium, premium, and economic beers. Their distinction is purely made through promotional activities. Initially the term "premium" beer was used years ago when transportation costs were extremely high. Brewers tagged a price premium on beer shipped great distances. To justify the higher price, brewers often emphasized superior taste.1 However, as the distribution network evolved; shipping costs became all but marginalized. The term "premium" remained though and is used by the large breweries to wage vigorous advertising and price-cutting wars against smaller breweries. Furthermore, it has been discovered that "premium" beer is a normal good and since per capita income has been increasing over the past couple of decades the demand for this product has increased. This is most likely the main reason why new brand offerings in grocery and liquor stores will all be generated from one of the major breweries. The cost of developing, promoting, and distributing of a brand nationally is often too much for smaller brewers. This all stems back to economies of scale and the ability of large brewers to block entry from smaller brewers.
New Product Development
One of the main ways for a brewer to differentiate itself is through new product offerings. Anheuser-Busch is again one of the best at introducing and pushing new products through their distribution network. According to Tom Pirko, "Another factor in the company's good health has to do with forward-thinking; they continue to be innovative and creative domestically and internationally." As stated before, Anheuser-Busch has often set market trends with the introduction of new products such as Michelob Ultra and Bacardi Silver. Anheuser-Busch is now setting its eyes on the import category, which was up 6% in 2002, by developing a new beer called Anheuser Select.5
If these new product categories can be differentiated as higher quality, than a premium price can be charged. For example, Anheuser Select will be considered a "super-premium" although it does not cost more than natural light to produce.1 The main distinction will be in its promotional activities. Anheuser-Busch will market this beer as an import and as a result will be able to charge import prices. Of course, this will come at a price. When Anheuser-Busch began to introduce the "super-premium's" under the Michelob name, they initially spent $84 million on advertising. They have since planned to step up this effort to $100 million in 2004 to maintain its "super-premium" image and therefore maintain the higher price.9
Advertising Expenditures
It is highly speculated that the beer industry spends and extraordinary amount on promotional and advertising activities to differentiate brands. However, when compared to companies in the beverage industry, such as Pepsi Co. and Coca Cola, the beer industry spends a rather modest amount. In the late 1970's, when the concentration of the industry began to skyrocket, there was a sharp increase in advertising expenditures. From 1985 to 1995 advertising expenditure as an industry has decreased from $917 million to $626 million.1 This trend may not be true for market leader Anheuser-Busch. In 1996 Anheuser-Busch spent $230.7 million on advertising and in 2002 they spent over $300 million on television advertising alone.7 Furthermore, Anheuser-Busch has spent millions for sponsorships of golf leagues, Major League Lacrosse, and other various sporting events. Although, when compared to the amount of barrels that Anheuser-Busch sells, the amount they spend on promotional activities is small. For example, in 1998 Anheuser-Busch spent $3.36 per barrel on advertising while Miller and Coors spent $5.20 and $6.75 respectively.1 So in essence there are economies of scale in advertising in this industry.
It is stated above that Anheuser-Busch spent over $300 million in 2002 on television advertising. Obviously the television is an important medium of advertising but what about other mediums such as print or radio and how effective are these mediums? In research done by Todd Jewell, it was discovered that the substitution elasticity of television advertisements is relatively high and significant. This means that if the price of television advertisement were to increase a brewer could go to print or radio and be as effective. However, the opposite is not true. If, for instance, the price of print advertising increased a brewer could not easily switch to television. This is most likely due to the fact that television accounts for 81-85% of a brewers advertising expense and this medium is already highly saturated. The best alternative would be to advertise on radio because radio and print ad's have extremely high substitutability elasticity.10
Pricing
The market demand for beer is very difficult to measure. It undergoes many seasonal fluctuations and varies greatly from region to region. The ability to give premium prices to "premium" beers and above premium prices to "super-premium" beer has already been discussed. However, insight into why this can happen has been limited statistically. In order to see how price sensitive the consumer is one would have to find the price elasticity of demand for beer.
There are many estimates for the price elasticity of demand in the beer industry. It is also important to look at income elasticity as well. The most recent studies have been produced by Donald Freeman, Blake and Nied, and Ornstein and Hanssens. Blake and Nied have estimated the price elasticity to be in a range of -1.39 to .22. This would indicate that beer is a relative inelastic commodity. Furthermore, Ornstein and Hanssens estimated the elasticity of beer to be at -.17 to -.12, another relatively inelastic demand. These numbers are consistent with the regression that I have run. Recall that the coefficient on the CPI-U variable is positive, indicating that as prices rise, barrels of beer sold rise.
These numbers would let us believe that brewers could charge whatever they please because the public will not greatly decrease the quantity they consume with an increase in price. While it is apparent to any individual who has purchased beer in the last decade that prices are not outrageous, there is some truth behind this statement. As was illustrated before, companies differentiate their brands in order to charge higher prices. In 2001 the most expensive beer, "super-premiums", saw a growth of .02% from 1998. However, economy beer, the least expensive beer, saw a decline in 2001 from 1998 of 3.1%.7 In fact, over the last decade the price of beer has continually been on the rise. Over the last four years Greg Hipp of Anheuser-Busch has estimated that the general price of beer has increased 3-5%. It is also estimated that over the next five years prices in the industry will sustain a 2% increase every year. However, Anheuser-Busch's sales are not hurting at all, in fact volume has been increasing and in 2001 they exceeded the 100 million barrel mark. It would indeed seem that beer is price inelastic.
There are more explanatory variables when evaluating the demand for beer however. The elasticity of income plays a large role when measuring demand. Table 7 shows that per capita income has been on the rise in the past decade and this may have increased the demand for beer. The work of Donald Freeman used the following independent variables to explain income elasticity for beer: disposable income, state excise tax on beer, the unemployment rate, the civilian unemployment ratio, and state dummy variables to account for all omitted occurrences. His research indicates that the elasticity of income for beer ranges from -3.65 to 4.78 which would indicate a high amount of elasticity. This may be why the "super-premium" category has been doing so well during the last decade. Although demand for beer is price inelastic, the demand for individual beer brands and price points (Super-premium, premium and economy) is elastic. Therefore, breweries cannot charge high prices for every beer. They have to differentiate their offering in order to be able to charge above premium prices for certain beers.11
Substitutes & Threats
While the brewing industry has enjoyed success over the last decade, there are still many threats to this industry. These threats come in all different forms. The following section will discuss two different threats facing the industry: government involvement and imports.
Government
The United States government plays an important role in the brewing industry on both the state and federal level. The federal government exerts pressure on the beer industry through the Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) regulatory agency. The ATF is in charge of approving new products and new labeling from breweries. One of their major functions is to collect excise taxes from breweries as well.
The effect of Excise Tax
The current federal government excise tax on beer comes in two parts. The rate depends on the amount of beer produced. A brewery can receive a reduced rate of $7 per barrel for the first 60,000 barrels if said brewery produces less than 2 million barrels per year. Obviously for companies like Anheuser-Busch this rate does not apply because their production is now over 100 million. Brewers like Anheuser-Busch receive a federal tax rate of $18 per barrel. Much of the government's regulatory power is derived through its ability to levy taxes on the brewing industry. While there has not been an increase in the tax rate since 1990, there is always the threat that federal excise taxes may increase. These excise taxes are levied on all beer that is produced and then removed for consumption from the brewery. By law this tax must be paid entirely by the brewery upon leaving the site of production.12 It is difficult to measure the effect federal excise taxes have had on prices in the industry. However, I have found estimates of the effect state excise taxes have had on beer price.
State excise taxes, come in all different sizes and forms. States have the ability to charge not only an excise tax but also a tax on wholesalers, private clubs, and counties have limited ability to collect taxes. The cost of these taxes is passed on to the consumer and therefore plays an important role in the supply and demand for beer. As of January 1, 2004 the highest state excise tax is in Alaska at a rate of $1.07 per gallon sold. Unlike other states, however, Alaska does not apply a sales tax on top of the excise tax. Most states, 41 out of 50, apply a state sales tax on top of the excise tax. This effectively raises the price of packaged beer even more. The median tax rate on beer for the United States is $.19 per gallon.13
According to Greg Hipp of Anheuser-Busch, the government exerts a large amount of pressure on brewers through the levying of state excise taxes. This is true when one thinks of the ramifications of increasing a state excise tax. The price on all beer must increase and therefore could have a negative affect on demand. Since 1972 state excise taxes have increased on an average of 2% per year, chart 7 illustrates this upward trend. As of April 22, 2003 there were 13 states that had proposed excise tax increases and 10 of those states already had the legislation working its way through the pipeline. Table 8 lists the 13 states and their proposed tax increases.14
Since state excise taxes have a direct impact on the price of packaged beer, the real question is to what extent is the effect on price. Of course not every state is the same so it is extremely difficult to compute. For the purpose of this analysis, the national average increase of 2% will be used. If this were the case, a nationwide increase of state excise taxes of 2% would cause an estimated change in price of $.01 to $.03 for Anheuser-Busch. For smaller brewers the amount is slightly more but nothing significant.12
I speculate that an increase in the excise tax could potentially lower demand for beer. This is due to the fact that the price of beer must be adjusted for an increase in excise tax. Donald Freeman, who was mentioned earlier in this paper, also ran regressions to determine the effect state excise tax has on the consumption of beer. It was his conclusion that in 1992, increases in state excise taxes only had a modest impact on the consumption of beer. He obtained a short-run elasticity of -.01 and a long-run elasticity of -.1.
The regression model that I have built does not include the same independent variables as Mr. Freeman or span across the same distance of time as Mr. Freeman. My regression model yields a very different result. To account for taxes in my model I included an independent variable that measured the total amount of taxes paid by the beer industry through federal excise taxes. I hypothesize that excise taxes would have a negative effect on the sales of beer. The results of my regression would point that the opposite is true. The coefficient on the tax variable is .043 which is not very high but is significant when talking about millions of barrels sold. Notice how this value is positive, which would suggest that excise taxes have a positive effect on the sale of Anheuser-Busch's beer. Surprisingly the p-value for this particular variable is .93, a p-value that can be interpreted as significant. However, the T-Stat for this coefficient is low, .089. Therefore, this coefficient cannot be seen as significant and the coefficient is dismissed.
Mergers and Anti-Trust
In many industries, it is easy to explain high concentrations if monopolization or oligopolization has occurred through mergers or acquisitions. The brewing industry, having only three companies that as of 2002 held more than 85% of the market, would seem to be a victim of this. Between 1950 and 1983 there were about 170 horizontal mergers in the brewing industry.1 However, these mergers do not explain the increased share of Anheuser-Busch, Miller, and Coors. The reason is that the federal government stepped in and stopped many of the mergers that would have been detrimental to competition in the industry.
The first anti-merger action that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) made was against Anheuser-Busch. In 1958 Anheuser-Busch attempted to acquire a brewery in Miami, Florida from a rival brewer. This brewery would give Anheuser-Busch nearly all the Florida market and eliminate competition in Florida. The FTC ruled against Anheuser-Busch, however; in retrospect it was probably one of the best outcomes Anheuser-Busch could have had.1 Discouraged by the result and ordered by the FTC to refrain from acquiring any other brewery for five years, Anheuser-Busch began an extensive inward growth strategy. Mergers are not the cause of Anheuser-Busch's tremendous market share; it is due to their excellent inward growth strategy.
There have been a multitude of mergers since Anheuser-Busch first attempted to buy the Miami brewery. However, most of them have seen little opposition from the government because of the insignificance of most mergers. Many mergers were buy the eight and ninth largest brewery in the industry and did not significantly increase the concentration in the industry. Furthermore, many mergers were the result of companies exiting the industry due to market leaders like Anheuser-Busch complete domination. Miller had a unique merger of their own when they were acquired by conglomerate Phillip Morris. However, this really only helped Miller internally grow. The increase in concentration in the industry can be attributed to the internal growth of companies like Anheuser-Busch, Miller, and Coors. It has been speculated that the early enforcement of anti-merger law may have been responsible for the internal growth of these companies.
Political Action Groups
While not directly associated with the government, Political Action Committees (PAC's) exert pressure on the government to pass legislation. There are many different of these lobbying groups in the United States that continually ask for stricter liquor or beer laws, increased drinking age, increased penalties for drinking and driving, etc. Among the most prominent in the United States are Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), Students Against Drunk Driving (SADD), and hundreds of state coalitions against alcohol.
Imports
Breweries in the US are beginning to face increasing pressure from breweries outside of the US. The United States imports more beer than it exports, 16.4 million barrels and 5.5 million barrels in 1998 respectively. Since 1998 the amount of imports shipped for domestic consumption has increased at an average rate of 1.2%.1 Beer has evolved over time, due to decreased shipping costs and improved processes, to become a truly global industry. Greg Hipp at Anheuser-Busch stated that imports have increased the size and breadth of the domestic beer market and is a serious threat to the volume Anheuser-Busch currently maintains. While domestic brewers have been slow to globalize their market, they are beginning to take steps to ensure a share in the expanding market. Anheuser-Busch owns a large stake in Mexico's top brewery Cerveceria Modelo and has entered into a joint venture with Japan's top brewery Kirin. Miller has just merged with South African Brewery to form SABMiller. This posses a serious threat to Anheuser-Busch because this entity has much more experience in international markets.
Anheuser-Busch may be the largest brewer in the world, but it is not a global brewery. Heineken, Carlsberg, and Guinness are global brewers with 70% of their volume produced outside of their home country. Growth in the US is beginning to stagnate and the real areas of growth are outside of the US. Industry expert Glen Steinman states, "Consolidation led by major international brewers and volume growth in developing markets, particularly China, are undoubtedly the most recent trends in the global beer industry." From 2000 to 2001 beer consumption in China increased 5.6% compared to a .2% decrease in the US.15 This is the market which domestic brewers like Miller and Anheuser-Busch are attempting to enter into. They are doing this through acquisitions and joint ventures with Chinese breweries. According to the Anheuser-Busch annual report, "Anheuser-Busch International's growth strategy is based on the dual objectives of building Budweiser into a leading international premium beer brand and forming equity partnerships with leading brewers in high growth markets." The goal is to increase global share from the 9% they held in 2002 as chart 8 shows. Do not let Anheuser-Busch's top global share be deceiving, 95% of their production remains in the United States.
Imports do pose a viable threat to the share that Anheuser-Busch and the rest of the domestic industry currently maintains. Consumption in the United States is beginning to decrease as well. However, the opportunities that were once prominent in the US are sprouting across seas, primarily in China. It should be Anheuser-Busch's and the domestic industry's top priority to merge into these markets. If they do not, there will be many growth opportunities lost and the potential for other foreign companies to take the reigns on global market share.
Conclusions
The market for beer is much like any other retail or commodity market. There are many threats from the government, imports, and close substitutes. Individual buyers have very little power to negotiate with breweries on the price of beer. The brewing industry is a highly concentrated oligopoly with one firm owning over 50% of the market. However, the breweries have very little power to charge monopolistic prices due to heavy internal rivalry. It has been illustrated that although demand is price inelastic, companies still spend millions on advertising and new product development to differentiate their brands of beer. There truly is a balance between the consumer and the supplier in the beer industry.
The results of the regressions have yielded some very interesting results. One purpose of this paper was to see if craft beer / microbrews have had an effect on the sales of Anheuser-Busch. Only looking at Anheuser-Busch's financials, I would have concluded that this is a false statement. However, the regression ran indicates that the opposite is true. The first regression has significant coefficients for the variables: Barrels of Boston Beer Sold, CPI-U, and Personal Income. The negative coefficient on the Barrels of Boston Beer Sold variable indicates that as this craft brewer sells more barrels, Anheuser-Busch sells less. This is an odd result because Anheuser-Busch has seen continual increases in sales over the last six years. Furthermore, they have realized increases in market share as well. Perhaps the regression is demonstrating that as Boston Beer sells more barrels, production of barrels at Anheuser-Busch slows down. While Anheuser-Busch still sees increases in barrels produced, the rate of increase is slowing down. In 1996 the amount of barrels sold from Anheuser-Busch increased 4% and in 2002 only increased 1%. It is difficult to say whether there is significance to this or not, but the regression seems to back this claim. Boston Beer has had an effect on the sales of Anheuser-Busch. It is difficult to say if craft beer is a substitute for beer from the large breweries. Mr. Hipp seems to think that microbrewers and craft brewers have had a positive effect on sales and awareness of the beer industry as a whole. This may be true but I conclude that while Anheuser-Busch continues to grow in market share and sales, microbreweries and craft brewers have stolen sales from Anheuser-Busch and therefore have had a negative effect on Anheuser-Busch.
Endnotes / References
Adams, Walter, Structure of American Industry. Beer Industry. Elzinga, Kenneth. Prentice Hall: 2000.
2 Economic Contributions of the Beer Industry. Beer Institute. 26 March 2004.
<http://www.beerinstitute.org>
3 Anheuser-Busch. Hoovers Online. 26 April 2004.
<http://www.hoovers.com>
4 Cioletti, Jeff. "A Crafty Bunch" Beverage World Magazine. January. 2004: 20-24
5 Data Provided from Following Sources:
. www.anheuserbusch.com
2. www.bostonbeer.com
3. www.census.gov
4. www.bls.gov
5. www.bea.gov
6. www.atf.gov
7. Maxwell Jr., John. "The Beer Industry in 1998." Davenport & Co. LLC 21 December 1998: Investex Plus Database Thompson Financial. 23 February 2004 <http://web3.infotrac.galegroup.com>
6 Home Page. Modern Brewery Age Magazine. 23 February 2004
<http://www.breweryage.com>
7 Popp, Jamie. "Beer Report" Beverage Industry Magazine. May. 2003: 18-24
8 Bruss, Jill. "Still the King of Beers" Beverage Industry Magazine. January. 2003: 22-26
9 Beirne, Mike & Hein, Kenneth. "Some Years Are Worth Toasting" Brandweek Magazine. 23 June
2003: 24-26
0 Jewell, Todd. "Media Substitution and Economies of Scale in Advertising." International Journal of
Industrial Organization December 2000: 1153-1180. Science Direct EBSCO Publishing.
(doi:10.1016/S0167-7187(99)00010-7) 29 March 2004 <http://www.epnet.com>
1 Freeman, Donald. "Alternative Panel Estimates of Alcohol Demand, Taxation, and the Business Cycle."
Southern Economic Journal 1 Oct. 2000: 0038-4038. Business Source Premier EBSCO
Publishing. (an: 3764928) 9 March 2004 <http://www.epnet.com>
2 Home Page. Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms Agency. 26 March 2004
<http://www.atf.gov>
3 Home Page. Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau. 26 March 2004
<http://www.ttb.ogv>
4 Spillane, Bryan. "Beer Industry Excise Tax Tracker." Banc of America Securities 22 April 2003:
Investex Plus Database Thompson Financial. 3 April 2004
<http://web3.infotrac.galegroup.com>
5 Kaplan, Andrew. "Global Beer: Tapping into Growth" Beverage World Magazine. February.
2003: 24-29
9
