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On another point — The takeover of America's favorite beer company by a bunch of foreigners never actually bugged me. Mergers and acquisitions seems to be the only way of becoming a market force in today's economy - and Budweiser had long faded as my cheap beer of choice. I had already settled for Coors Light before the big-deal (price one reason, girth another).
Like many, I too had vocalized to my drinking buddies that this foreign-company taking over a beloved-American-company experiment would leave a sour taste on the tongues of patriotic Bud lovers which would make them go over to Coors.
Flash forward to 2012
For a number-crunching manager like Brito, an old, family-run company like Anheuser-Busch provided plenty of opportunities for cuts. He laid off approximately 1,400 people, about 6 percent of the U.S. workforce. He sold $9.4 billion in assets, including Busch Gardens and SeaWorld. AB InBev also tried to save money on materials. It used smaller labels and thinner glass for its bottles. It tried weaker cardboard for its 12-packs and cases. The old Anheuser-Busch insisted on using whole grains of rice in its beer. AB InBev was fine with the broken kind. “Our purchasing of rice has to do with how fresh the rice is, not whether it is whole or broken,” says Vallis.
Then Coors Light became number 2:
The brewer's flagship beer saw a 7% decline in U.S. sales in the third quarter. That's a pretty dramatic fall, continuing a trend we've seen for years. Coors Light booted Budweiser from the No. 2 spot in America last year, though Bud Light still has the top spot. The company also makes Stella Artois and Beck's, and said overall U.S. beer sales fell 0.9%.Flash forward to March, 2013
Someone has actually accused AB-InBev of watering down America's favorite watered down beer - and in a blind taste test; many could not tell the difference between the real stuff and the watered-down stuff.
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