Omg... Budweiser-owner AB InBev just made its biggest wine acquisition ever: Babe Wine. Josh Ostrovsky — aka comedian The Fat Jewish — launched White Girl Rosé in 2015 during the infamous Hamptons rosé shortage of 2015. His goal was to become "the Bud Light of wine." Now it's official.
Bud's been around forever. Keep it that way... ZX Ventures is Bud's in-house venture capital arm that buys stakes in innovative alcohol ventures since that's cheaper than having to innovate itself. It already had a stake in Babe, and just slurped up the very last of it to become the 100% owner. Here's why it made sense:
- Sales of rosé in America rose 8% last year while beer sales have been slowly declining. White Girl Rosé has that trend covered.
- Sales of canned wine jumped 69% — Babe brand's convenient 12 oz cans of wine "with bubbles" are a big reason for that growth.
- Babe aggressively targets the bachelorette crowd (hello "Party Box") with social media marketing that Bud wants to hang with — model Emily Ratajkowski (23M Insta followers) is Babe's Chief Taste Officer.
Bud needs a better summer drink... Your local 7/11 is likely out of non-beer options labeled "spiked," "hard," and "bubbly." The same trend that's got us hooked on LaCroix over soda has consumers wanting lighter, fruitier summer drinks over beer. Bud rival Constellation Brands was showing off its new non-beer Corona sparkling spin-offs in its earnings report Friday. Now Bud needs some bubbles.