February Not So Bad for Imports

Dear Client: The beer industry was down 2.8% in IRI food-drug-c-store scans for the four weeks to February 21, better than the -5% IRI trend in January. Being down 2.8% is about in line with the quarterly trend, and not nearly as bad as reported brewery shipments and anecdotal distributor STRs for the period. Of course, Super Bowl was moved into February giving that first week a big boost, and perhaps retailer inventories are finally being sold through. But the