Beer and hot dogs are as patriotic as they get. However, when you open the cooler at your July 4th cookout, you may see fewer beers, with alternatives such as spiked seltzers, canned cocktails, and hard teas taking their place.

And you may blame the young people for it. According to NIQ’s Kaleigh Theriault, the youngest group of legal-age drinkers, Gen Z, ages 21 to 26, are “drinking completely differently than any other generation we’ve seen before.”

Beer | PixaBay Image

“They’re new to drinking, and when they do, they tend to gravitate toward flavor-forward categories,” Theriault, an associate director of beverage alcohol thought leadership at the consumer intelligence firm, told CNN.

Gen Z Wants Flavorful Drinks. Here’s How Big Beer Is Trying To Attract Them

Smaller companies’ beverages dominate the landscape. E. & J. Gallo Winery’s High Noon reigns supreme in the spirit-based cocktail category; Mark Anthony Brands’ White Claw remains the best-selling spiked seltzer; and newer entrants, such as Surfside, a two-year-old brand that mixes liquor with iced tea or lemonade, are quickly gaining ground.

That’s a problem for Big Beer, dealing with flat sales, declining volume, and an inconsistent generation of younger drinkers who have abandoned the bottle or prefer anything other than regular beer.

In response, Miller Lite producer Molson Coors Beverage Company, Modelo brewer Constellation Brands, and heavyweight Anheuser-Busch InBev are among the biggest brewers widening their portfolio with delicious concoctions.

Fruit, in particular, has been a focal point because “it’s something that the consumer seems to be drawn to right now, and they want to drink something really good,” Theriault explained. Those flavors offer that.

Constellation drew inspiration from TikTok for its new beer, which is inspired by the “Corona Sunrise” cocktail, which combines tequila, Corona, orange juice, grenadine, and lime juice. The beer has taken off on the video-sharing app, with the most popular tutorial receiving roughly 14 million views.

Because it is illegal to sell a beer mixed with a spirit, Corona created its version to appeal to younger drinkers: the “Sunbrew Citrus Cerveza,” which is brewed with orange and lime peels, blended with the same juices, and mixed with a Corona Extra to mimic the sweet flavor of the cocktail counterpart.

“This new brew was created with the flavor-seeking Gen Z audience in mind, a group of drinkers known for their experimentation and mixing,” remarked Saúl Trejo, director of brand marketing at Corona. For now, the drink is only accessible in the northeastern United States, but if sales are strong, it may extend nationwide.

Sunbrew joins Constellation’s portfolio of Gen Z-oriented beverages, including Fresca Mixed and its malt-based beverages, Corona Refresca and Modelo Spiked Aguas Frescas. Both have fruity flavors and are selling well for the brand.

TikTok has also impacted Molson Coors’ newest boozy beverage, “Happy Thursday.” What is the schtick? It’s non-carbonated because “bloating that may come from carbonation is considered a top barrier” for younger drinkers, and the habit of “decarbonizing” drinks is gaining popularity on the app.

The “smooth, bubble-free” drink is available in four fruit varieties, including strawberry and black cherry. Its low alcohol concentration of 4.4% by volume fits another Gen Z desire. According to the brewery, the drink also comes in vivid packaging meant to “pop on social media.”

Happy Thursday, launched less than three months ago, is experiencing growth in sales and distribution, and feedback has been “extremely positive,” according to the company’s blog. The company may provide more information about its sales during its next earnings report, due in August.

Happy Thursday fits into the company’s goal, which began in 2019 when Molson Coors changed its name to reflect its expanding array of beverages other than beer. That includes hard iced tea, energy drinks, and the Simply Spiked line. Last year, it purchased Blue Run Spirits, a cult beloved high-end bourbon and rye whiskey company, as US spirit sales surpassed beer sales.

“In order to remain relevant, suppliers must evolve and follow where the consumer is trending — and right now, the consumer wants flavor,” NIQ’s Theriault said of their pivots. “Innovation is really important in the alcohol industry and ensuring that innovation is tied to the consumer trends is what’s right for business.”

Building ‘beyond beer’
Canned cocktails and spirits-based beverages have also aided Anheuser-Busch’s bottom line in the United States, particularly given Bud Light’s declining sales. Its aptly named “Beyond Beer” division currently accounts for $1.5 billion of its global revenue and is helping to recruit younger, legally aged drinkers.

Beer | Pixa Bay Image

Two standouts are NÜTRL, a tasty line of vodka seltzers, and Cutwater Spirits bottled cocktails. An Anheuser-Busch representative told CNN that Cutwater, which sells canned rum mai tais, vodka mules, and tequila palomas, has “steadily grown dollar sales double digits for five consecutive years” and is up 23% this year.

Gen Z Wants Flavorful Drinks. Here’s How Big Beer Is Trying To Attract Them

Still, Anheuser-Busch’s prospects are not sunny, especially when a beverage has the Bud Light label. Bud Light Seltzer sales are down 50%, according to trade newspaper Brewbound, surpassing a bigger drop in malt-based seltzers as drinkers turn to spirit-based beverages. The company debuted a new advertising campaign in 2023, only a few weeks before the Dylan Mulvaney scandal sank its parent brand’s sales.

Despite younger customers’ reluctance to purchase beer and low sales, Big Beer businesses are not facing an existential threat. According to one expert, the reverse is true.

“Young drinkers can now find just about any kind of drink in almost any kind of flavor practically whenever they want, and they get to choose from the most diverse collection of beverages that has ever existed — with and without alcohol,” Bryan Roth, an analyst for Feel Goods Company and editor of the alcohol beverage newsletter, Sightlines+, told CNN.

“These long-established, often historic businesses are adapting to the market. What’s really interesting is that consumers are increasingly taking the initiative,” he said.

SOURCE – CNN

In 1997, “David,” a worker on a banana plantation, was brutally and quickly executed by right-wing Colombian paramilitary groups.

He was taken off, beaten to death in front of his fellow passengers, and thrown on the side of the road, where his attackers covered his corpse with a banana plant, just minutes after his bus was halted at a checkpoint in the coastal district of Urabá. Court records stated that cows would later eat his corpse.

The violence persisted after that. A few weeks later, his sister-in-law and daughter vanished, never to be seen again. Another family member received death threats.

The family that remained quickly departed Urabá permanently.

Chiquita | CNN Image

The Bloody History Behind The $38 Million Chiquita Verdict

He was only one of thousands of victims targeted by the notorious right-wing terrorist organization known as the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, or AUC, which was able to muster tens of thousands of fighters during the height of Colombia’s civil conflict at the beginning of the new century.

“For the past 17 years, it has been an honor to represent these victims.” Simons stated during a press conference in Washington on Tuesday, “It’s not over yet, but this is a significant step forward, and we hope that this will pave the way for compensation for all the victims.”

Although Simons believes it is doubtful that any of the victims would get compensation anytime soon as a result of Chiquita’s appeal, he believes the case has sent a clear message to businesses about the need of upholding human rights.

In the end, the money won’t be able to make up for the loss. Even though we’re still discussing the horrifying mistreatment these families have endured, money matters because, regrettably, it’s the language that companies speak the best. According to Simons, sometimes a sizable financial fine is necessary to influence business conduct.

“Tragic in so many ways”
Chiquita has argued in its defense that it was a victim of its own actions because it was compelled to pay the AUC protection money, both in the current case and in earlier legal proceedings.

Even while the jury was not persuaded by that argument that it had behaved “as a reasonable businessperson would have acted under the circumstances,” the corporation told CNN that it was still “confident that our legal position will ultimately prevail” in the wake of the most recent verdict.

“Our thoughts and prayers are with the families of those who were directly impacted by the violence in Colombia, as well as the many others who found themselves in a tragic situation.” That does not, however, alter our conviction that these assertions lack a legitimate foundation,” the statement said.

The business acknowledged that it had made more than “100 payments to the AUC totaling over $1.7 million” in its 2007 lawsuit against the US Justice Department. According to a US Justice Department press release from the time, Chiquita documented the AUC payments as “security services,” despite the fact that the business never got any real services from these payments.

Before becoming US Attorney General under President Barack Obama, Eric Holder represented Chiquita in the 2007 trial. At the time, he informed the court that the company had to pay various terrorist organizations for more than 15 years because those organizations controlled the areas where the company operated. Not the government of Colombia.

However, in that trial, the company ultimately entered into a plea agreement acknowledging that, because of the protection money issue, it had voluntarily continued to pay the AUC even after the group was designated as a terrorist organization by the US government in 2001 and even after a senior director objected to Chiquita’s board reiterating “his strong opinion to sell our operations in Colombia.”

Chiquita | Dem Now Image

The Bloody History Behind The $38 Million Chiquita Verdict

Chiquita’s operations in Colombia yielded profits of $49.4 million between 1997 and 2004, according to the findings of federal attorneys.

A period of “true terror.”
The AUC was established in 1997, in the midst of one of the deadliest periods of the civil war in Colombia, when the government was fighting right-wing paramilitaries, left-wing guerrillas, and criminal groups for supremacy.

At that time, the civilian population was being terrorized by left-wing guerrillas from the National Liberation Army (ELN) and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), who were fighting the government. Prior to turning to the AUC in 1997, Chiquita claimed in the 2007 case that it had paid ransoms to the ELN and the FARC.

Due to the threat of an armed communist revolution, right-wing supporters and landowners in Colombia organized vigilante organizations to match the guerrillas blow for blow. Until their ultimate demobilization in 2006, the AUC was one such group that terrorized the people of northern Colombia in an effort to put an end to the uprising.

When the AUC was at its strongest, it could muster tens of thousands of fighters and was mostly funded by drug trafficking; after demobilization, over a dozen AUC officials were deported to the US on drug-related charges.

“I recall that time; it was truly terrifying,” a plaintiff who received compensation on Monday told CNN. “You had victims all around town; not only was my husband killed, but my daughter was also raped.”

Another piece of evidence presented to the jurors in the most recent instance included a young girl who had been made to see her mother and stepfather being executed on the side of the road from a cab. She was then given the equivalent of less than one dollar so that she could go back home and live as an orphan.

Colombia, as of right now
The Colombia of today is very different from the Colombia of the AUC’s founding.

The 52-year struggle between the government and the FARC was resolved by a peace agreement in 2016, a few years after the AUC’s demobilization; however, some dissidents are still fighting.

chiquita | Earth Rights Image

The Bloody History Behind The $38 Million Chiquita Verdict

In an effort to put an end to some of the bloodiest chapters of the conflict, transitional justice procedures have since included both left- and right-wing guerrillas and paramilitaries.

Still, there is terror in Urabá.

A few ex-members of the AUC are still on the loose, having joined the Gulf Clan, a new organized crime gang that opposes government authority in northwest Colombia.

Rights organizations claim that strong corporate interests are still working with local governments and criminal organizations to suppress activism, especially when it comes to environmental protection, which can be a risky endeavor in South America.

Nevertheless, the court decision this week offers hope for at least some of the numerous AUC victims. In a show of defiance, one of the litigants who spoke with CNN sought to have her message shared.

“Mom don’t talk, mom don’t pick up the phone,” is what my son and daughter all say. However, fear is only permanent until a person chooses to express it,” she remarked.

SOURCE – CNN

Leave it to a Wells Fargo food expert to definitively resolve the Chipotle burrito “weight debate.”

On TikTok, some consumers accused Chipotle of underserving food quantities. They created a habit of photographing Chipotle personnel as they customized their burrito orders with chicken, guacamole, and other toppings in order to get larger scoops.

Chiptotle

An Analyst Ordered 75 Chipotle Burrito Bowls To Test Portion Sizes

The “Chipotle phone method” went viral on social media, and several personnel reacted, stating customers filming them was “stressful and dehumanizing.”

Chipotle’s CEO eventually addressed the matter.

“The portions have not gotten smaller,” Chipotle CEO Brian Niccol told Fortune recently. “We always want to give people big portions that get them excited about the food.” He stated that if consumers require extra rice or another topping, they can ask an employee.

So Zachary Fadem, a Wells Fargo analyst, went to Chipotle to investigate.

Fadem and his team ordered and weighed 75 burrito bowls with white rice, black beans, chicken, pico de gallo, cheese, and lettuce from eight Chipotle locations in New York City. (They brought them back to the office for lunch with other Wells Fargo employees.)

chipotle

An Analyst Ordered 75 Chipotle Burrito Bowls To Test Portion Sizes

The analysts discovered that the uniformity of the portions varied significantly.

The bowls weighed nearly the same for in-store and online orders. However, some locations served bowls that were 33% heavier than others. Some burrito bowls went to extremes, with one topping out at 27 ounces in one place and only 14 ounces in another. The median weight was approximately 21.5 ounces.

According to Laurie Schalow, Chipotle’s chief corporate affairs officer, the size of a customer’s bowl may vary depending on the number of components selected or whether an ingredient is extra or light. She stated that the corporation has not adjusted its portion sizes.

Portion size uniformity is vital for restaurants because it allows them to control costs and avoid running out of products or having too much left over.

An Analyst Ordered 75 Chipotle Burrito Bowls To Test Portion Sizes

Customers expect consistency from restaurant chains, and analysts warn that if serving sizes are not consistent, the chain’s reputation may suffer. Many firms have been chastised for reducing product sizes while charging the same or more, a practice known as “shrinkflation.”

However, this does not appear to be affecting Chipotle. Despite the social media concerns, Chipotle’s sales increased 7% last quarter, beating competitors such as McDonald’s.

SOURCE – (CNN)