US – Leading American beverage company Molson Coors Beverage Company has said that it has increased production capacity for its Vizzy, Coors Seltzer and Blue Moon LightSky products by more than 400% at its Fort Worth and Milwaukee breweries.
According to a statement from the company’s CEO Chief Supply Officer Brian Erhardt, the expansion is inline with the company’s new strategy to produce drinks beyond its beer category.
“We’ve seen tremendous growth in Vizzy, Coors Seltzer and LightSky since each of these products were introduced earlier this year, and we’re full steam ahead from a production standpoint,” said Brian Erhardt, chief supply chain officer at Molson Coors.
The move “beyond the beer aisle” comes at time when demand in beer is dwindling in the united states as consumers move towards healthier options.
According to the Beverage Information Group’s 2019 Beer Handbook, overall beer consumption in the United States continued to slide, with total volume decreasing 1.3% to 2.77 billion 2.25-gallon cases in 2018.
The dwindling beer volumes put the future growth of Molson Coors growth in jeopardy with the company recording 78.4% decrease in GAAP net income for the year ending 31 December 2019 due to declining sales.
To position its self for the future the company rebranded this year, launching a new corporate identity and committing itself to becoming a beverage company that produces more than just beer.
“We will continue to compete and win on the foundation of our great beers, but the reality is our future will expand beyond that,” Molson Coors Beverage Company CEO Gavin Hattersley had said at the time.
In its third-quarter results, the company said that it expected to take a double-digit share of the US hard seltzer market by the end of 2022 and announced that it was expanding its hard seltzer production capacity to support this growth.
Molson Coors has also invested to meet demand for its LightSky citrus wheat beverage, which it says is the number one new beer of 2020, according to Nielsen.
In Milwaukee, the company has installed a new can filler, allowing the brewery to package nearly 2,000 cans of Blue Moon LightSky per minute.
Molson Coors has also invested ‘millions of dollars’ to install new equipment at the Fort Worth Brewery to further modernise the facility.
These expansion projects are the latest in a series of moves Molson Coors has made as part of its revitalisation plan and are a good bet given that the Hard Seltzer Market is projected to grow at a CAGR of 128% between now and 2021.
“These investments will allow us to keep up with demand as we work to aggressively grow our above-premium portfolio and prepare for additional product launches that the revamped Fort Worth and Milwaukee breweries are able to handle.”
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