C-Store Roundup: Tough Times Continue

The beer business continues to slide in the industry's biggest off-premise channel: convenience stores. In the latest Nielsen 4 week period ending 12/27/2008 (note that it is lacks the last four sell days of the year) show category volume in c-stores down by 2%. Some of that is the timing of the periods, as we indicated yesterday, and some of it may be channel-shifting to big box or supermarkets. But there is some good news: the volume softness was offset