Budweiser Losing Distribution in Supermarkets

Follows long-running share decline.

In recent years, Budweiser has shown an uncanny ability to gain shelf space in supermarkets and convenience stores even as its sales decline.

But performance finally appears to be catching up with Budweiser, at least in supermarkets.

Budweiser saw the number of items carried in supermarkets (a proxy for shelf space) slip by 0.1 points, according to beer sales statistics from Nielsen.

That may seem modest – but Bud has now suffered this same 0.1 point loss for 12 consecutive rolling four-week periods.

Simply put, that’s the first such distribution loss detected for Bud on record. And it comes as Bud is posting one of the biggest velocity declines in the business. According to Nielsen, case sales are down 8.1 percent per total distribution points – a proxy Nielsen uses to measure breadth of distribution.

Given that performance, perhaps it’s not surprising that A-B is ratcheting up spending for Budweiser – and rolling out a major line extension, Bud Light Lime, that could take up some of that lost shelf space.