What are the key sales KPIs for the Wine and Spirits Distribution industry in 2027?

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Direct Answer

The nine KPIs that actually run a wine and spirits distributor in 2027 are: Depletions (cases sold to retail), Distributor Margin per Case ($), Supplier Portfolio Share (%), On-Premise vs Off-Premise Split (%), Points of Distribution (PODs) per Brand, Account Penetration (%), Brand Rank within Portfolio, Premiumization Mix Shift (%), and E-commerce/DTC Growth (%), with Regulatory Compliance Audit Pass Rate sitting alongside as a tenth covenant KPI.

Together they tell a supplier whether your distributor is moving the liquid, the retail account whether you are filling the cooler door, and the state regulator whether the three-tier system is intact.

TL;DR
— In the three-tier system, depletions are the only revenue event that matters, so everything else is a leading indicator of next quarter's case flow. Healthy distributors run gross margin of $14–$22 per case, 70%+ account penetration in their core territories, and a premium-plus mix above 35%.
Track depletions and PODs weekly, account penetration and margin monthly, premiumization mix and DTC growth quarterly. After RNDC's 2026 restructuring and Southern Glazer's expansion to 47 markets, the operating bar has reset upward — sub-60% account penetration or sub-$14 margin per case puts a supplier contract at risk inside two cycles.

Why Wine and Spirits Distribution Works Differently

Beverage alcohol distribution is not CPG even though it ships pallets of consumer goods. Four mechanics make it its own category.

The three-tier system is a regulatory moat, not a market structure. Post-Prohibition law in 47 states forces suppliers to sell to licensed distributors, who sell to licensed retailers and on-premise accounts. You cannot sell direct except in narrow DTC wine carve-outs. That means distributor selection is a capital-allocation decision for the supplier — flipping from RNDC to Southern Glazer's in a state moves nine-figure revenue inside 90 days, as Brown-Forman, Bacardi, and Diageo have all demonstrated since 2023.

Depletions, not shipments, are the revenue event. Distributors buy inventory from suppliers (shipments), but the supplier only books true sell-through when the distributor depletes that inventory into a retail or on-premise account. Inventory sitting in a warehouse is a working-capital liability.

Sophisticated supplier KPI decks ignore shipments and benchmark depletion velocity against the same week prior year, because shipments can be pulled forward to hit quarterly numbers and depletions cannot.

Account penetration compounds. A distributor's value is the number of licensed accounts (bars, restaurants, liquor stores, grocers, hotels) where its sales reps already have a relationship. Southern Glazer's reaches an estimated 350,000+ accounts in the US; RNDC at its peak was near 200,000.

Each incremental account a supplier's brand lands in is a permanent PODs lift — and losing an account because a competitor outbid for shelf is a permanent decay. The KPI that captures this is PODs per brand per market.

Premiumization stalled in 2025 — mix shift is now a defensive KPI. IWSR's 2026 data shows total beverage alcohol volumes down 2% and value down 4% across the 21 leading markets, with the formerly reliable premium-plus tier flat-to-negative. The new motion IWSR calls "selective premiumization" — distributors are being graded on whether they can hold premium mix while seeding RTDs, non-alc, and value tiers.

A distributor whose premium mix is sliding while the category goes flat is leaking margin in two directions.

The 9 KPIs, In Depth

1. Depletions (cases sold to retail, 9-liter equivalents). The headline operating metric — measured weekly per SKU per market. Suppliers benchmark depletion growth against same-period-prior-year.

Constellation Brands reported beer depletions up ~3% in FY2026; wine and spirits depletions were down ~6%. A flat depletion line for a premium spirit in a Southern Glazer's territory is a yellow flag; down 4%+ for two quarters triggers a portfolio review.

2. Distributor Margin per Case ($). Gross profit per 9L case after supplier cost. Spirits cases typically deliver $18–$28 per case in margin; table wine $12–$18; fine wine $25–$60; beer $4–$8.

Below $14 weighted average across the portfolio is structurally unprofitable once warehouse, fleet, and sales-rep cost is loaded. Breakthru Beverage and Johnson Brothers publicly target $16–$20 blended margin per case as the floor for new supplier deals.

3. Supplier Portfolio Share (%). Share of a distributor's total revenue from each top supplier. Concentration above 25% from a single supplier (e.g., Diageo, Bacardi, Pernod Ricard, Constellation, E&J Gallo) creates contract leverage risk.

Empire Merchants in New York historically ran 30%+ Diageo concentration — useful for terms, dangerous if the supplier consolidates distribution.

4. On-Premise vs Off-Premise Split (%). Mix of revenue from bars/restaurants vs liquor/grocery stores. Pre-2020 the split nationally was roughly 25/75; the post-COVID rebuild has it near 22/78 in 2026 per IWSR.

On-premise carries higher margin per case but more credit risk and slower receivables (45–60 days vs 21–30 days off-premise). A 30%+ on-premise mix is premium-positioned; below 15% means the distributor lost the cocktail-program game.

5. Points of Distribution (PODs) per Brand. Number of unique licensed accounts stocking a given SKU in a market. A flagship like Tito's Handmade Vodka or Casamigos typically hits 90%+ PODs in a Southern Glazer's market; a craft launch lands at 8–15% in year one.

PODs growth is the leading indicator that depletions will follow 60–90 days out. Suppliers grade distributors weekly on net new PODs and lost PODs.

6. Account Penetration (%). Share of a market's total licensed accounts where the distributor has any active business. Best-in-class is 75%+ in mature territories; Southern Glazer's runs above 80% in Florida, Texas, and California.

Penetration below 60% in a primary territory means the distributor has structural sales-rep coverage gaps — and supplier brands launched into that territory will under-perform peers by 20%+ in year one.

7. Brand Rank within Portfolio. Where each supplier's brand sits on the distributor's internal priority list — A-deck, B-deck, or C-deck. A-deck brands get the morning sales calls and the chain-account presentations; C-deck brands ship on request.

Suppliers fight quarterly for A-deck slots because the rank predicts depletions inside 30 days. Beam Suntory, Edrington, and Campari all run dedicated distributor-incentive budgets specifically to defend A-deck position.

8. Premiumization Mix Shift (%). Share of case volume in the premium ($20+ per 750ml at retail) and super-premium ($40+) tiers. IWSR data shows premium-plus stalled in 2025–2026 after a decade of double-digit growth.

Best distributors are holding 35–40% premium mix; the median has slipped to 28–32%. A 200+ basis-point premium-mix decline year-over-year is a red flag for margin-per-case.

9. E-commerce/DTC Growth (%). Growth of the omnichannel channel — third-party marketplaces (Drizly until Uber Eats absorbed it in 2024, Instacart Alcohol, Gopuff, Saucey), retailer.com pickup, and wine-club DTC where permitted. The channel is still under 5% of total beverage-alcohol revenue but growing 12–18% annually per IWSR.

Empire Merchants and Breakthru Beverage built dedicated digital-commerce teams in 2024–2025; smaller distributors are losing share to those investments.

flowchart TD A[Supplier Ships Cases to Distributor] --> B[Warehouse Inventory + Working Capital] B --> C{Sales Rep Activity} C -->|On-Premise| D[Bars + Restaurants 22% mix] C -->|Off-Premise| E[Liquor + Grocery 78% mix] D --> F[New PODs + Brand Rank Lift] E --> F F --> G[Depletions Event - Revenue Recognized] G --> H{Margin per Case Healthy?} H -->|Yes $16+| I[Reinvest in Sales Coverage] H -->|No sub-$14| J[Supplier Contract Review] I --> K[Account Penetration Growth] K --> L[Premium Mix Shift Up] L --> M[Supplier Trust + A-Deck Position] M --> A J --> N[Distributor Switch Risk] N --> A

Real Operators

Southern Glazer's Wine and Spirits is the dominant US distributor — 47 markets, ~350,000 accounts, an estimated 36% national market share per Shanken Communications, and revenue above $26B. Republic National Distributing Company (RNDC) restructured aggressively through 2025–2026 after losing the Brown-Forman and Diageo California books; workforce reductions announced in the last week of February 2026 alongside Southern Glazer's and Breakthru.

Breakthru Beverage Group runs ~16 markets including Illinois, New York metro, and Florida wine, with revenue near $7B. Johnson Brothers anchors the Upper Midwest with deep Minnesota, Wisconsin, and North Dakota coverage. Empire Merchants holds the New York City and Long Island spirits franchise.

Young's Market Company (now part of RNDC since the 2019 merger) carried the West Coast. Allied Beverage Group is the New Jersey heavyweight. Martignetti Companies controls Massachusetts.

Heidelberg Distributing runs Ohio wine and spirits. Wirtz Beverage (the Breakthru predecessor) shaped the modern Illinois model. On the supplier side, Constellation Brands, Diageo, Bacardi, Pernod Ricard, and E&J Gallo drive a disproportionate share of distributor revenue and dictate the KPI scorecards distributors are measured against.

Failure Modes

The four that wreck a wine and spirits distributor. (1) Supplier concentration over 25% — when one supplier represents more than a quarter of revenue, a contract loss (Brown-Forman from RNDC, Diageo from RNDC California) takes out the P&L for two years. (2) Working-capital trap from over-shipment — accepting supplier shipment incentives that outrun depletion velocity bloats inventory, hits the credit line, and forces fire-sale closeouts that crush margin per case.

(3) Sales-rep attrition in core territories — losing a senior rep in a top-50 metro costs 15–20 PODs per week for six months until a replacement rebuilds the book. (4) Premiumization-mix denial — keeping price-tier reporting blended hides the slide from premium into value and lets margin-per-case erode 100–200 basis points before the CFO sees it.

Reporting Cadence

Daily: order intake, warehouse pick rates, on-time delivery percentage, credit-hold accounts. Weekly: depletions by SKU by market, net new PODs, lost PODs, sales-rep call completion rate, on-premise vs off-premise mix. Monthly: distributor margin per case by tier, account penetration delta, brand-rank reviews with top-20 suppliers, premium-mix shift, e-commerce channel growth.

Quarterly: full supplier business reviews (SBRs), regulatory compliance audit pass rate, working-capital and inventory-turn analysis, strategic territory P&L for the board.

flowchart TD A[Daily Operations] --> B[Orders + Picks + Deliveries + Credit Holds] B --> C[Weekly Sales Review] C --> D[Depletions + PODs + Rep Calls + On-Off Mix] D --> E[Monthly Business Review] E --> F[Margin per Case + Penetration + Brand Rank + Premium Mix] F --> G[Quarterly Supplier Business Review] G --> H[SBR Scorecards + Compliance + Working Capital] H --> I[Re-forecast Depletions + Renegotiate Terms + Re-deck Brands] I --> A

30/60/90 Day Plan

Days 1–30: rebuild the depletions data spine. Reconcile distributor VIP/Diver depletions reporting against supplier shipment records and retailer scan data from Nielsen IQ and Circana — the three sources will not match and the gap is the first finding. Establish weekly depletions, margin-per-case, and PODs baselines by SKU and market.

Days 31–60: ship the account-penetration and brand-rank dashboard. Wire it to the sales-force-automation route accounting system on one side and the supplier-portfolio scorecard on the other. Identify the bottom-quartile territories by penetration and the top-10 supplier brands at risk of slipping from A-deck to B-deck, and brief the regional VPs.

Days 61–90: run the first quarterly supplier business review under the new KPI framework. Bring depletions vs prior year, PODs growth, premium-mix shift, and on-premise vs off-premise mix to each top-20 supplier with a credible 12-month plan. Re-baseline the premium-mix forecast against IWSR's 2026 selective-premiumization view and present the operating model to the CFO with monthly checkpoints.

FAQ

Why do depletions matter more than shipments? Shipments measure inventory transfer to the distributor and can be pulled forward to hit quarter-end. Depletions measure inventory transfer to the licensed retailer or on-premise account, which is the closest event to real consumer demand.

Supplier CFOs forecast off depletions; only sales operations track shipments.

How is distributor margin per case calculated? Gross profit per 9-liter equivalent case after supplier cost, post-program-funds and depletion allowances. Most distributors report it net of trade-spend allocation so the number is comparable across suppliers and tiers.

What's a healthy on-premise vs off-premise mix in 2026? Around 22% on-premise / 78% off-premise nationally per IWSR, with premium spirits distributors running closer to 30/70. Below 15% on-premise means a coverage gap with bars and restaurants that takes 12–18 months to rebuild.

How fast is the e-commerce channel growing? Alcohol e-commerce is under 5% of total US beverage alcohol revenue but growing 12–18% annually. The channel is fragmented across Drizly/Uber Eats, Instacart Alcohol, Gopuff, and retailer.com pickup — distributors need a unified channel scorecard, not a per-app report.

Sources

Wine & Spirits Wholesalers of America (WSWA) — Annual Industry Reports
IWSR Drinks Market Analysis — Beverage Alcohol Forecasts and Reports
Nielsen IQ — Beverage Alcohol Scan Data
Circana (formerly IRI) — Off-Premise Retail Tracking
Beverage Industry Magazine — Annual Distributor Rankings
Shanken Communications — Impact Databank
Drizly / Uber Eats Alcohol — E-commerce Market Reports
Constellation Brands — Form 10-K (FY2026)
Brown-Forman Corporation — Form 10-K
Park Street Imports — Distribution Industry Briefings

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### Direct Answer

The nine KPIs that actually run a wine and spirits distributor in 2027 are: **Depletions (cases sold to retail)**, **Distributor Margin per Case ($)**, **Supplier Portfolio Share (%)**, **On-Premise vs Off-Premise Split (%)**, **Points of Distribution (PODs) per Brand**, **Account Penetration (%)**, **Brand Rank within Portfolio**, **Premiumization Mix Shift (%)**, and **E-commerce/DTC Growth (%)**, with **Regulatory Compliance Audit Pass Rate** sitting alongside as a tenth covenant KPI. Together they tell a supplier whether your distributor is moving the liquid, the retail account whether you are filling the cooler door, and the state regulator whether the three-tier system is intact.

> **TL;DR** — In the three-tier system, depletions are the only revenue event that matters, so everything else is a leading indicator of next quarter's case flow. Healthy distributors run gross margin of $14–$22 per case, 70%+ account penetration in their core territories, and a premium-plus mix above 35%. Track depletions and PODs weekly, account penetration and margin monthly, premiumization mix and DTC growth quarterly. After RNDC's 2026 restructuring and Southern Glazer's expansion to 47 markets, the operating bar has reset upward — sub-60% account penetration or sub-$14 margin per case puts a supplier contract at risk inside two cycles.

## Why Wine and Spirits Distribution Works Differently

Beverage alcohol distribution is not CPG even though it ships pallets of consumer goods. Four mechanics make it its own category.

**The three-tier system is a regulatory moat, not a market structure.** Post-Prohibition law in 47 states forces suppliers to sell to licensed distributors, who sell to licensed retailers and on-premise accounts. You cannot sell direct except in narrow DTC wine carve-outs. That means distributor selection is a capital-allocation decision for the supplier — flipping from RNDC to Southern Glazer's in a state moves nine-figure revenue inside 90 days, as Brown-Forman, Bacardi, and Diageo have all demonstrated since 2023.

**Depletions, not shipments, are the revenue event.** Distributors buy inventory from suppliers (shipments), but the supplier only books true sell-through when the distributor depletes that inventory into a retail or on-premise account. Inventory sitting in a warehouse is a working-capital liability. Sophisticated supplier KPI decks ignore shipments and benchmark **depletion velocity** against the same week prior year, because shipments can be pulled forward to hit quarterly numbers and depletions cannot.

**Account penetration compounds.** A distributor's value is the number of licensed accounts (bars, restaurants, liquor stores, grocers, hotels) where its sales reps already have a relationship. Southern Glazer's reaches an estimated 350,000+ accounts in the US; RNDC at its peak was near 200,000. Each incremental account a supplier's brand lands in is a permanent PODs lift — and losing an account because a competitor outbid for shelf is a permanent decay. The KPI that captures this is **PODs per brand per market**.

**Premiumization stalled in 2025 — mix shift is now a defensive KPI.** IWSR's 2026 data shows total beverage alcohol volumes down 2% and value down 4% across the 21 leading markets, with the formerly reliable premium-plus tier flat-to-negative. The new motion IWSR calls "selective premiumization" — distributors are being graded on whether they can hold premium mix while seeding RTDs, non-alc, and value tiers. A distributor whose premium mix is sliding while the category goes flat is leaking margin in two directions.

## The 9 KPIs, In Depth

**1. Depletions (cases sold to retail, 9-liter equivalents).** The headline operating metric — measured weekly per SKU per market. Suppliers benchmark depletion growth against same-period-prior-year. **Constellation Brands** reported beer depletions up ~3% in FY2026; wine and spirits depletions were down ~6%. A flat depletion line for a premium spirit in a Southern Glazer's territory is a yellow flag; down 4%+ for two quarters triggers a portfolio review.

**2. Distributor Margin per Case ($).** Gross profit per 9L case after supplier cost. Spirits cases typically deliver $18–$28 per case in margin; table wine $12–$18; fine wine $25–$60; beer $4–$8. Below $14 weighted average across the portfolio is structurally unprofitable once warehouse, fleet, and sales-rep cost is loaded. **Breakthru Beverage** and **Johnson Brothers** publicly target $16–$20 blended margin per case as the floor for new supplier deals.

**3. Supplier Portfolio Share (%).** Share of a distributor's total revenue from each top supplier. Concentration above 25% from a single supplier (e.g., Diageo, Bacardi, Pernod Ricard, Constellation, E&J Gallo) creates contract leverage risk. **Empire Merchants** in New York historically ran 30%+ Diageo concentration — useful for terms, dangerous if the supplier consolidates distribution.

**4. On-Premise vs Off-Premise Split (%).** Mix of revenue from bars/restaurants vs liquor/grocery stores. Pre-2020 the split nationally was roughly 25/75; the post-COVID rebuild has it near 22/78 in 2026 per IWSR. On-premise carries higher margin per case but more credit risk and slower receivables (45–60 days vs 21–30 days off-premise). A 30%+ on-premise mix is premium-positioned; below 15% means the distributor lost the cocktail-program game.

**5. Points of Distribution (PODs) per Brand.** Number of unique licensed accounts stocking a given SKU in a market. A flagship like **Tito's Handmade Vodka** or **Casamigos** typically hits 90%+ PODs in a Southern Glazer's market; a craft launch lands at 8–15% in year one. PODs growth is the leading indicator that depletions will follow 60–90 days out. Suppliers grade distributors weekly on **net new PODs** and **lost PODs**.

**6. Account Penetration (%).** Share of a market's total licensed accounts where the distributor has any active business. Best-in-class is 75%+ in mature territories; Southern Glazer's runs above 80% in Florida, Texas, and California. Penetration below 60% in a primary territory means the distributor has structural sales-rep coverage gaps — and supplier brands launched into that territory will under-perform peers by 20%+ in year one.

**7. Brand Rank within Portfolio.** Where each supplier's brand sits on the distributor's internal priority list — A-deck, B-deck, or C-deck. A-deck brands get the morning sales calls and the chain-account presentations; C-deck brands ship on request. Suppliers fight quarterly for A-deck slots because the rank predicts depletions inside 30 days. **Beam Suntory**, **Edrington**, and **Campari** all run dedicated distributor-incentive budgets specifically to defend A-deck position.

**8. Premiumization Mix Shift (%).** Share of case volume in the premium ($20+ per 750ml at retail) and super-premium ($40+) tiers. IWSR data shows premium-plus stalled in 2025–2026 after a decade of double-digit growth. Best distributors are holding 35–40% premium mix; the median has slipped to 28–32%. A 200+ basis-point premium-mix decline year-over-year is a red flag for margin-per-case.

**9. E-commerce/DTC Growth (%).** Growth of the omnichannel channel — third-party marketplaces (Drizly until Uber Eats absorbed it in 2024, Instacart Alcohol, Gopuff, Saucey), retailer.com pickup, and wine-club DTC where permitted. The channel is still under 5% of total beverage-alcohol revenue but growing 12–18% annually per IWSR. **Empire Merchants** and **Breakthru Beverage** built dedicated digital-commerce teams in 2024–2025; smaller distributors are losing share to those investments.

```mermaid
flowchart TD
    A[Supplier Ships Cases to Distributor] --> B[Warehouse Inventory + Working Capital]
    B --> C{Sales Rep Activity}
    C -->|On-Premise| D[Bars + Restaurants 22% mix]
    C -->|Off-Premise| E[Liquor + Grocery 78% mix]
    D --> F[New PODs + Brand Rank Lift]
    E --> F
    F --> G[Depletions Event - Revenue Recognized]
    G --> H{Margin per Case Healthy?}
    H -->|Yes $16+| I[Reinvest in Sales Coverage]
    H -->|No sub-$14| J[Supplier Contract Review]
    I --> K[Account Penetration Growth]
    K --> L[Premium Mix Shift Up]
    L --> M[Supplier Trust + A-Deck Position]
    M --> A
    J --> N[Distributor Switch Risk]
    N --> A
```

## Real Operators

**Southern Glazer's Wine and Spirits** is the dominant US distributor — 47 markets, ~350,000 accounts, an estimated 36% national market share per Shanken Communications, and revenue above $26B. **Republic National Distributing Company (RNDC)** restructured aggressively through 2025–2026 after losing the Brown-Forman and Diageo California books; workforce reductions announced in the last week of February 2026 alongside Southern Glazer's and Breakthru. **Breakthru Beverage Group** runs ~16 markets including Illinois, New York metro, and Florida wine, with revenue near $7B. **Johnson Brothers** anchors the Upper Midwest with deep Minnesota, Wisconsin, and North Dakota coverage. **Empire Merchants** holds the New York City and Long Island spirits franchise. **Young's Market Company** (now part of RNDC since the 2019 merger) carried the West Coast. **Allied Beverage Group** is the New Jersey heavyweight. **Martignetti Companies** controls Massachusetts. **Heidelberg Distributing** runs Ohio wine and spirits. **Wirtz Beverage** (the Breakthru predecessor) shaped the modern Illinois model. On the supplier side, **Constellation Brands**, **Diageo**, **Bacardi**, **Pernod Ricard**, and **E&J Gallo** drive a disproportionate share of distributor revenue and dictate the KPI scorecards distributors are measured against.

## Failure Modes

The four that wreck a wine and spirits distributor. **(1) Supplier concentration over 25%** — when one supplier represents more than a quarter of revenue, a contract loss (Brown-Forman from RNDC, Diageo from RNDC California) takes out the P&L for two years. **(2) Working-capital trap from over-shipment** — accepting supplier shipment incentives that outrun depletion velocity bloats inventory, hits the credit line, and forces fire-sale closeouts that crush margin per case. **(3) Sales-rep attrition in core territories** — losing a senior rep in a top-50 metro costs 15–20 PODs per week for six months until a replacement rebuilds the book. **(4) Premiumization-mix denial** — keeping price-tier reporting blended hides the slide from premium into value and lets margin-per-case erode 100–200 basis points before the CFO sees it.

## Reporting Cadence

**Daily:** order intake, warehouse pick rates, on-time delivery percentage, credit-hold accounts. **Weekly:** depletions by SKU by market, net new PODs, lost PODs, sales-rep call completion rate, on-premise vs off-premise mix. **Monthly:** distributor margin per case by tier, account penetration delta, brand-rank reviews with top-20 suppliers, premium-mix shift, e-commerce channel growth. **Quarterly:** full supplier business reviews (SBRs), regulatory compliance audit pass rate, working-capital and inventory-turn analysis, strategic territory P&L for the board.

```mermaid
flowchart TD
    A[Daily Operations] --> B[Orders + Picks + Deliveries + Credit Holds]
    B --> C[Weekly Sales Review]
    C --> D[Depletions + PODs + Rep Calls + On-Off Mix]
    D --> E[Monthly Business Review]
    E --> F[Margin per Case + Penetration + Brand Rank + Premium Mix]
    F --> G[Quarterly Supplier Business Review]
    G --> H[SBR Scorecards + Compliance + Working Capital]
    H --> I[Re-forecast Depletions + Renegotiate Terms + Re-deck Brands]
    I --> A
```

## 30/60/90 Day Plan

**Days 1–30:** rebuild the depletions data spine. Reconcile distributor VIP/Diver depletions reporting against supplier shipment records and retailer scan data from Nielsen IQ and Circana — the three sources will not match and the gap is the first finding. Establish weekly depletions, margin-per-case, and PODs baselines by SKU and market.

**Days 31–60:** ship the account-penetration and brand-rank dashboard. Wire it to the sales-force-automation route accounting system on one side and the supplier-portfolio scorecard on the other. Identify the bottom-quartile territories by penetration and the top-10 supplier brands at risk of slipping from A-deck to B-deck, and brief the regional VPs.

**Days 61–90:** run the first quarterly supplier business review under the new KPI framework. Bring depletions vs prior year, PODs growth, premium-mix shift, and on-premise vs off-premise mix to each top-20 supplier with a credible 12-month plan. Re-baseline the premium-mix forecast against IWSR's 2026 selective-premiumization view and present the operating model to the CFO with monthly checkpoints.

## FAQ

**Why do depletions matter more than shipments?** Shipments measure inventory transfer to the distributor and can be pulled forward to hit quarter-end. Depletions measure inventory transfer to the licensed retailer or on-premise account, which is the closest event to real consumer demand. Supplier CFOs forecast off depletions; only sales operations track shipments.

**How is distributor margin per case calculated?** Gross profit per 9-liter equivalent case after supplier cost, post-program-funds and depletion allowances. Most distributors report it net of trade-spend allocation so the number is comparable across suppliers and tiers.

**What's a healthy on-premise vs off-premise mix in 2026?** Around 22% on-premise / 78% off-premise nationally per IWSR, with premium spirits distributors running closer to 30/70. Below 15% on-premise means a coverage gap with bars and restaurants that takes 12–18 months to rebuild.

**How fast is the e-commerce channel growing?** Alcohol e-commerce is under 5% of total US beverage alcohol revenue but growing 12–18% annually. The channel is fragmented across Drizly/Uber Eats, Instacart Alcohol, Gopuff, and retailer.com pickup — distributors need a unified channel scorecard, not a per-app report.

## Sources

- Wine & Spirits Wholesalers of America (WSWA) — Annual Industry Reports
- IWSR Drinks Market Analysis — Beverage Alcohol Forecasts and Reports
- Nielsen IQ — Beverage Alcohol Scan Data
- Circana (formerly IRI) — Off-Premise Retail Tracking
- Beverage Industry Magazine — Annual Distributor Rankings
- Shanken Communications — Impact Databank
- Drizly / Uber Eats Alcohol — E-commerce Market Reports
- Constellation Brands — Form 10-K (FY2026)
- Brown-Forman Corporation — Form 10-K
- Park Street Imports — Distribution Industry Briefings

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