Molson Coors Beverage Company has reported results for the 2021 first quarter, where Net Sales Revenue decreased by 9.7%.

Gavin Hattersley, president and chief executive officer, commented: “Molson Coors achieved tangible progress in the first quarter against its revitalisation plan, which is designed to: build on the strength of the Company’s iconic core brands; aggressively grow its above premium portfolio; expand beyond the beer aisle; invest in its capabilities and support its people and communities.

This progress serves to advance the company’s goal of achieving long-term sustainable top-line and underlying EBITDA growth. However, in the first quarter of 2021, the Company faced three major events that had material near-term impacts on the business: a system outage caused by a cybersecurity incident, an abnormal winter storm in Texas that forced utility companies to shut off power to the Fort Worth brewery for 11 days, and government restrictions that shut down the entire on-trade channel in the UK.

“Despite these three unprecedented and disruptive events that took place in the quarter, we continued to make progress against our revitalisation plan focused on driving long-term top-line growth.

“Our iconic core of beers continue to gain strength. For example, in the US, Coors Light finished the first quarter of 2021 with the strongest category share performance since the first quarter of 2017, and Coors Banquet posted its best quarterly brand volume performance in over four years.

“We saw tangible progress on our path to growing our above premium portfolio. Net sales revenue per hectoliter in our largest market, the U.S, was up 4.1%, as we took substantial steps toward our hard seltzer ambition, driven by the launch of Topo Chico Hard Seltzer. Vizzy and Coors Seltzer are top-five hard seltzers with some of Canada’s leading retailers, and we have launched the Three Fold hard seltzer brand in the U.K. and are launching the Wai brand in Central and Eastern Europe in the coming weeks. Blue Moon LightSky also became the top volume share gainer in U.S. craft.

“ZOA Energy Drink has secured a strong retail presence and will begin hitting shelves later in the second quarter of 2021 as we approach Memorial Day, adding real muscle to our beyond beer portfolio.

“And we continued advancing towards our sustainability goals, becoming the first major U.K. brewer to operate entirely by renewable energy. The U.K. also eliminated plastic rings from all of our major packs.”

Statement from Tracey Joubert, Chief Financial Officer:

“We are proud of our operational agility and resilience as we adeptly managed through some unprecedented challenges during the quarter while still continuing to execute on our revitalization plan. While uncertainty due to on-premise restrictions remains, we are making progress under the revitalization plan, and we continue to anticipate 2021 to be a year of both top-line growth and investment for the company. As such, we are reaffirming our guidance for the year.

“We entered 2021 with a healthier balance sheet and significantly improved financial flexibility, underlying our commitment to maintaining, and ultimately upgrading, our investment grade rating. In 2021, we remain focused on reducing debt, investing in our business and returning cash to shareholders.

“At present, we continue to expect that the board will be in a position to reinstate a dividend in the second half of 2021.”