Fortune 500 Company that Owns Corona Enters Marijuana Industry
The beer industry is looking to grab their piece of the pie now that the marijuana industry is becoming legal. The industry is concerned that beer sales will significantly decrease once marijuana is legalized. Their fears are substantiated with a new report predicting that the beer industry could lose up to $2 billion in revenue to marijuana.
Forbes reported that 27 percent of beer consumers will or already have switched from drinking beer to consuming weed once their state legalizes marijuana. The marijuana industry is expected to earn more than $50 billion by the year 2026. Beer manufacturers don’t want to be left behind and are exploring ways to profit from pot.
The Fortune 500 company Constellation Brands is a beer, wine and spirits international company that produces Corona beer and Clos du Bois wine. The company has bought a 9.9 percent stake in Canopy Growth, a Canadian cannabis company valued at 2.2 billion dollars by the Toronto Stock Exchange, according to CNBC.
The Cowen & Co bond brokerage and research firm issued a report last September that confirmed the beer market is declining due to states legalizing marijuana in 2016. The report stated that with “these states now having fully implemented a marijuana retail infrastructure, the underperformance of beer in these markets has worsened over the course of 2016.”
Cannabis infused cocktails are also a source of concern for alcohol manufacturers. A company named Modern Martini RX has a cocktail called Canna Cosmo that contains 50 to 100 percent THC content using an energetic sativa strain. The drink is meant to induce creativity and good humor. Another company called Stratos has a cannabis pill that can be plopped in a drink called Ascend. The THC tablet is meant to convert a soda, juice or water into a cannabis infused cocktail.
With so much money on the line, everyone is jumping on the pot bandwagon.
Niko Mann is a freelance writer living in Los Angeles.
