| Type | Wholly owned subsidiary |
|---|---|
| Industry | Beverages and packaging |
| Founded | 1852, incorporated in 1875 |
| Headquarters | St. Louis, Missouri, U.S. |
| Key people | Dave Peacock (CEO) Luiz Fernando Edmond (North American Zone President) |
| Products | Beers, lagers, malt beverages, energy drinks, bottled water |
| Revenue | $16.7 billion (2007) |
| Employees | 30,849 (2007) |
| Parent | Anheuser–Busch InBev |
| Website | www.anheuser-busch.com |
Anheuser-Busch Companies, Inc. (pronounced /ˈænhaɪzər ˈbʊʃ/), is an American brewing company. The company operates 12 breweries in the United States and 18 in other countries. It was, until December 2009, also one of America's largest theme park operators; operating ten theme parks across the United States through the company's family entertainment division, Busch Entertainment Corporation. As a wholly owned subsidiary of Anheuser–Busch InBev, the regional headquarters are still located in St. Louis, Missouri.[1]
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The brewery which would become Anheuser-Busch was purchased on the brink of bankruptcy by Eberhard Anheuser, a prosperous German-born soap manufacturer, in 1860.[2] Adolphus Busch, Anheuser’s son-in-law, joined E. Anheuser & Co. in 1864, becoming partner in 1869. Adolphus became president when Anheuser died in 1880, and the company then became Anheuser-Busch Brewing Association.[3] The Busch family would be in full control of the company through the generations until Anheuser-Busch's sale to InBev in 2008.[4]
Adolphus Busch initially toured Europe and studied the changes in brewing methods which were taking place at the time, particularly the success of Bohemian lager, which included a locally popular example brewed in Budweis.[2] In 1876, Busch introduced Budweiser, with the ambition of transcending regional tastes.[2]
Adolphus Busch was the first U.S. brewer to use pasteurization to keep beer fresh, the first to use artificial refrigeration and refrigerated railroad cars and the first to bottle beer extensively.[5] This ability to transport bottles made Budweiser America's first national beer brand, and it was marketed as a "premium" beer. At the time, the term "premium" applied to all nationally-distributed beers[2], and in 1896 the company introduced its "super-premium" brand Michelob, which is still marketed today as the higher-end line of AB products.[6]
As with all breweries in the country, the Temperance movement and eventual Prohibition in the United States dealt a major blow to the company in the 1910s through the 1930s. Some of the products sold by Anheuser-Busch to survive during Prohibition included brewer's yeast, malt extract, ice cream, and Bevo, a nonalcoholic malt beverage.[3][7]
Anheuser-Busch became the largest brewer in the United States in 1957.
Anheuser-Busch International, Inc. was established in 1981, and is responsible for the company's foreign beer operations and equity investments. However, after the InBev takeover, A-BII essentially has been shut down and those respective operations were transferred to the other InBev zones where the interests are located.
As of 2008, it has 48.9% share of beer sales in the United States (by barrels),[8] and produces about 11 billion bottles and cans of beer a year.
Up until 2009, Anheuser-Busch was also one of the largest theme park owners/operators in the United States, with ten parks throughout the country through its entertainment division, Busch Entertainment Corporation. On October 7, 2009, parent company Anheuser-Busch InBev announced plans to sell the division to The Blackstone Group for up to $2.7 Billion USD.
On June 12, 2008, Brazilian-Belgian brewing company InBev announced that it had made a US$ 46 billion dollar offer for the company.[9] which if it was accepted would join two of the world's four largest brewing companies (based on revenue) and create a company brewing three of the highest grossing beers in the world, namely Bud Light, Budweiser, and Skol. InBev also stated that the merger would not result in any U.S. brewery closures and they would also attempt to retain management and board members from both companies.[10] On June 25, 2008, Anheuser-Busch officially announced that they would reject InBev's offer and provide a restructuring of company to maintain shareholders and United States World Headquarters in St. Louis.[11] On July 1, 2008, InBev urged Anheuser-Busch shareholders to vote in favor of the buyout as InBev felt the offer of $65 per share should be considered a reasonable offer in view of the falling stock market. The company had previously filed suit in Delaware, after the rejection of their offer, to ensure that the stockholders could oust Anheuser-Busch's 13 board members.[12] On July 7, 2008, Anheuser-Busch filed a lawsuit against InBev to stop them from soliciting support of shareholders, stating that the company's offer is an illegal scheme. InBev was also accused of concealing that they do business in Cuba, which might have created additional obstacles to their efforts to operate in the United States.[13]
On July 13, 2008, Anheuser-Busch and InBev said they had agreed to a deal, pending shareholder and regulatory approval,[14] for InBev to purchase the American icon at $70 per share, creating a new company to be named Anheuser-Busch InBev. Anheuser-Busch would get two seats on the combined board of directors. The all-cash agreement, almost $52 billion in total equity, created the world’s largest brewer, uniting the maker of Budweiser and Michelob with the producer of Beck's, Stella Artois, Hoegaarden, Leffe, Bass, Labatt and Brahma. The two companies had combined yearly sales of more than $36.4 billion, surpassing the current No. 1 brewer, London-based SABMiller.[15][16]
On November 18, 2008, the acquisition was completed and the company is now known as Anheuser-Busch Inbev. Within six months, InBev "turned a family-led company that spared little expense into one that is focused intently on cost-cutting and profit margins, while rethinking the way it sells beer."[8] InBev is applying an approach that "stresses a sharp eye on costs and incentive-based pay structures" that it inherited from AmBev in a prior acquisition; among the changes:[8]
These changes are also accompanied by changes in its advertising.
The changes continued in 2010, as Anheuser-Busch InBev:
In the United States, Anheuser-Busch operates 12 breweries. These are located in St. Louis, Missouri; Baldwinsville, New York; Cartersville, Georgia; Columbus, Ohio; Fairfield, California; Fort Collins, Colorado; Houston, Texas; Jacksonville, Florida; Van Nuys, Los Angeles, California; Merrimack, New Hampshire; Newark, New Jersey; and Williamsburg, Virginia.
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Anheuser-Busch Brewery
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The packaging plant in St. Louis, Missouri
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| Location: | 721 Pestalozzi St. Louis, Missouri |
|---|---|
| Area: | 142 acres (0.57 km2)[18] |
| Built: | 1875 |
| Architectural style: | Romanesque |
| Governing body: | Private |
| NRHP Reference#: | 66000945 |
| Significant dates | |
| Added to NRHP: | November 13, 1966[19] |
| Designated NHLD: | November 13, 1966[20] |
Anheuser-Busch InBev's North American headquarters are located in St. Louis, Missouri. The brewery, opened in 1852, is a National Historic Landmark District, and includes three buildings listed as National Historic Landmarks. Free public tours of the brewery are given. The tour takes visitors through the complex, and those of the legal age can enjoy two free glasses of any Anheuser-Busch product in the Hospitality Room after the tour. Tourists can see beer being made and packaged in a working part of the brewery.
The company keeps a rotation of its famous Budweiser Clydesdales at its headquarters, and visitors to the brewery can observe the Clydesdales in their exercise field and see their places in the carriage house. Some of the herd is kept at the company farm in St. Louis County. The farm, known as Grant's Farm (having been owned by former President Ulysses S. Grant at one time), is home to a menagerie of animals such as elephants, tortoises, and a variety of exotic hooved mammals. Since 2008, approximately half of the Budweiser Clydesdales are kept at the Warm Springs Ranch near Boonville Missouri.
The brewery was designated a U.S. National Historic Landmark in 1966.[18][20] The landmarked area includes 189 structures spread over 142 acres (0.57 km2), including many red brick Romanesque ones "with square crenelated towers and elaborate details."[18] The Brew House, built in 1891-1892, is particularly notable for its "multi-storied hop chandeliers, intricate iron-work, and utilization of natural light".[18]
Anheuser-Busch, prior to the take-over, operated Anheuser-Busch International Inc. which handled the international operations (described below). After the InBev takeover, however, those specific interests and the management oversight of them has been transferred to those respective zones (Harbin, for example, is now managed by the Asia-Pacific Zone of A-B InBev). The following description of A-BII areas, therefore, is left here for historical purposes:
Outside the United States, Anheuser-Busch operates 15 breweries - 14 in China and one in the United Kingdom; In China, A-B operates Budweiser Wuhan International Brewing Company, Ltd. and Harbin Brewery Group Ltd which A-B fully acquired in 2004. Chinese production of AB products in China started, in Wuhan, after their purchase of a local brewery in 1997. In the United Kingdom, the Budweiser Stag Brewing Company Ltd. produces and packages Budweiser, but this brewery is due to close in 2010 as part of cost controls introduced following Anheuser-Busch's acquisition by InBev.[21]
Budweiser is also locally brewed in eight other countries: Argentina, Canada, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Russia, South Korea and Spain.
Anheuser-Busch strategic equity investments include:
Anheuser-Busch's best known beers include brands such as Budweiser, Busch, Michelob, Bud Light, and Natural Light. The company also produces more than 100 beers, import beers, specialty beers, nonalcoholic brews, malt liquors ( such as King Cobra and Hurricane), and flavored malt beverages (e.g. the Bacardi Silver family and Tequiza). As of July 2009, the #1 bestselling beer in America is Bud Light.[25]
The company introduced a flavored 12% abv malt liquor under the name Spykes in 2007. It was sold in colorful, 2-ounce bottles. Available flavors included mango, lime, melon and chocolate.[26] It was withdrawn in the same year after criticism from alcohol industry watchdog groups that it was being marketed to underage customers, and the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau found that the labeling of Spykes was illegal.[27][28][29]
In addition to brewing its own beer, Anheuser-Busch is responsible for the importation and distribution in the U.S. of a number of international beers.[30] These include Beck's from Germany, Czechvar (known as Budvar in Europe) from the Czech Republic, Kirin from Japan, Bass Ale and Boddingtons from England, and Hoegaarden, Leffe, and Stella Artois from Belgium.
Prior to its acquisition by InBev, the company was known in the United States for its advertising presence, including a sports marketing division which creates advertising material for the Super Bowl and many other sporting events. Budweiser has sponsored horse racing events and motor sports including NASCAR and the "Budweiser King" championship top fuel dragster of Kenny Bernstein.
Busch television campaigns have included:
The company has long been known for its jingles. A few of them are:
Since the acquisition by InBev, significant changes in advertising plans have been rolled out, predicated on the belief that "changing demographics and media habits no longer require spending as much on mainstream sports events":[8]
In 2002, the Political Economy Research Institute ranked Anheuser–Busch 40th among the "Toxic 100", a list of U.S. corporations most responsible for air pollution. The study found that Anheuser–Busch released 1,002,786 kg (2,213,657 lbs) of toxic pollutants annually into the air.[31] This is mainly because large amounts of CO2 are released during the process of fermentation.
Anheuser-Busch has received numerous awards for its efforts to reduce its impact on the environment.[32] In 1995 Anheuser-Busch's Baldwinsville brewery won an award for pollution prevention from the New York Governor for its use of a "comprehensive, energy-producing pollution-prevention system - bioenergy recovery - to treat wastewater from the brewing process." The brewery also reduced solid waste by nearly 70 percent from 1990 to 1994. In addition, the Baldwinsville brewery found markets for previous "waste" materials used in the fermentation of Anheuser-Busch beers.[33] The Anheuser-Busch Recycling Corp. recycled more than 27 billion cans in 2006, a number far greater than what was used in its own packaging. Similarly, Anheuser-Busch has set short-term goals to reduce energy consumption 5% and increasing use of renewable fuel from 8 to 15% by 2010. Along with these goals, Anheuser-Busch has succeeded in cutting down its water use by 3 % since 2002.[34] Anheuser-Busch is investigating several other renewable energy possibilities such as biomass, wind, solar, and landfill gas as a fuel to reduce the company's environmental impact. The Corporation has also made commitments to decrease its greenhouse gas emissions "by 5 percent from its 2005 baseline by 2010 as part of its membership in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Climate Leaders program."[35]
The brewery also operates an environmental outreach program to encourage recycling, energy conservation, and habitat preservation, as well as to prevent littering and water pollution.[36] For past 18 years Anheuser-Busch employees have participated in "Green Week", which focuses on environmental conservation education for employees and their families.[35]
Anheuser-Busch states they do not use animal derived products, artificial ingredients, additives or preservatives at any stage of the brewing process or as part of the packaging in any of their range, with the exception of three Michelob products and two Bud Light products, which contain honey and shellfish respectively, and are marketed as such.[37] All other Anheuser-Busch beers are brewed using water, yeast, barley malt, hops, and additional cereal grains. Anheuser-Busch eliminates the need for isinglass finings by settling and removing particles before fermentation. The beechwood aging process also helps to attract and remove yeast from the brew before the lagering process has ended.[38][39] This only applies to the beers the company brews itself.
Anheuser-Busch subsidiaries include:[40]
Owens-Illinois supplies glass bottles to many of the Anheuser-Busch breweries around the world including a brand new plant in Windsor, Colorado. Anheuser-Busch bought Longhorn Glass, a former Anchor Hocking Glass plant providing glass for the Houston Brewery, and has partnered with O-I to make glass bottles for A-B in several other cases.
Anheuser-Busch distributes Borba Skin Balance Water, Monster Energy, Lost Energy, Rumba Energy, and Icelandic Glacial spring water.
The St. Louis Cardinals baseball club were owned by Anheuser-Busch from February 20, 1953 until the club was sold to a group of private investors on March 21, 1996. Busch Memorial Stadium, paid for and built by the brewery in the mid-1960s, was recently demolished and replaced by a new ballpark. Anheuser-Busch signed an agreement for the new ballpark to retain the "Busch Stadium" name on the new building through 2025.
Anheuser-Busch delivers its products to retailers through a large network of wholesalers and distributors.[41] In the United States, there are about 800 of these;[42] One of the largest is Hensley & Co. in Phoenix, Arizona, with yearly sales of over 20 million cases of Anheuser-Busch beers,[42] and whose chair is Cindy Hensley McCain, the wife of the Republican Presidential nominee for 2008, Senator John McCain of Arizona. The Gaudio family of Illinois hold the longest running wholesalers for Anheuser-Busch, dating back from 1904. Charles Gaudio started an association with Anheuser-Busch as a distributor in a southern Illinois town called Benld. Earl Gaudio, of Danville, IL celebrated 100 years of family ownership with Anheuser-Busch in 2004. He built his wholesaler in 1956. A. Gaudio, Earl's nephew, presides over the Jacksonville, IL distributorship. When he retired from baseball after the 1968 Season, former New York Yankees and St. Louis Cardinals outfielder, Roger Maris was given a distributorship based in Gainesville, FL by August A. Busch, Jr..
The Lewis Bear Company in Pensacola, FL has records dating back to October 1891 with Anheuser-Busch, establishing the longest standing relationship between the brewer and a wholesaler. In 1991, they were recognized by Anhueser-Busch for their 100 years of continued service, and awarded a bronze eagle to signify its importance.
Dave Peacock is the current president and CEO of Anheuser-Busch Companies (2008–2009).[25] Luiz Fernando Edmond is the Zone President for Anheuser-Busch InBev's North American Zone (Peacock reports to him). He was appointed by InBev to head the zone in 2008 and came to St. Louis from South America.
A chronology of past corporate leaders (President and CEO) is as follows:
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