Welcome in, today is Thursday, October eighth, and we begin in Japan, where Tech Times reports regulators have raided all four of the country's major brewers. Japan's Fair Trade Commission has raided all four of the country's major brewers. Tech Times reports the commission executed simultaneous searches on Wednesday at Asahi Breweries, Kirin Brewery, Sapporo Breweries and Suntory Spirits, under court-issued warrants, on suspicion that executives and sales managers coordinated wholesale beer price increases over several years. All four confirmed the searches, pledged cooperation and denied wrongdoing, per that account. Investigators are focused on two industry-wide increases, one in October twenty twenty-two and a second in April twenty twenty-five, and on whether the shared cost explanations behind them were genuine. The same reporting cites NHK calling this the first compulsory criminal price-fixing probe of Japan's food and beverage sector. Those four companies hold more than ninety percent of a domestic beer market worth about one trillion yen a year, so suspected coordination at this level puts pricing conduct and compliance exposure in play for anyone selling into or sourcing from Japan. The commission had warned companies on September second that it would act strictly on cartels formed under cost pressure. Also today, Constellation Brands' beer shipments ran well ahead of its depletions last quarter. Brewbound reports shipments to wholesalers rose five and a half percent year over year in the second quarter of fiscal twenty twenty-seven, while depletions fell six tenths of a percent, a narrower decline than before. Chief executive Nicholas Fink attributed the shipment gain to intentional distributor restocking, per coverage from The Motley Fool. That reporting also has Modelo depletions down two percent and Corona down five, offset by Pacifico up nineteen percent and Victoria up fifteen, with Circana data showing an eight tenths of a point share gain. Industry reaction leans toward reading the two figures against each other, with some in the trade framing the gap as inventory timing rather than recovering demand. Staying with the middle tier, Shanken News Daily argues the distribution business is in a historic reset, with wholesalers on both sides of the category line rebuilding as total beverage houses. The argument starts from RNDC's divestitures and bankruptcy filing, which we covered when Martignetti closed on its control-state purchase. That account puts Reyes Beverage Group's share of the business at eleven markets and more than five billion dollars of revenue last year, which it says makes the group's spirits and wine arm the third largest wine and spirits wholesaler in the country. Southern Glazer's, meanwhile, is dropping Wine and Spirits from its name in early twenty twenty-seven, with annual beer revenues above one billion dollars after buying Anheuser-Busch's New York City operation, Clare Rose and Eagle Rock. Martignetti has also agreed to acquire the Massachusetts distributor Girardi. A recurring read in the channel is that the blur is demand-driven, with prepared cocktails and non-alcoholic formats growing while core beer and spirits soften. Another supplier is leaving Coors Distributing Company. Brewbound reports Sierra Nevada has terminated the Molson Coors-owned wholesaler and will move to Reyes in the Denver area, joining what that report calls a growing list of suppliers exiting the Colorado portfolio. The summary is brief, with no transition date or volume detail. It follows our earlier reporting on Mark Anthony Brands and Constellation leaving the same house, and on the lawsuits Coors Distributing filed to halt those terminations. A third large portfolio in transit turns a pair of disputed exits into a pattern, and suppliers and retailers will read it for distributor leverage and shelf access in Colorado. Now, a few more headlines moving the trade today. Constellation's purchase of SpikedAde, which we reported yesterday, is pegged at seventy-five million dollars, with BevNET describing the brand as the second largest vodka-and-ade hard sports drink. The Beer Institute puts August beer supply down one percent year over year, an improvement it attributes to a rebound in imports, per Brewbound. Treasury Wine Estates is cutting about one hundred seventy roles across global corporate functions, in what Just Drinks reports the company frames as a push for a simpler organisation. Heaven Hill has sold the liqueur brand Irish Mist to Ireland-based Old Canal Quay Spirits Company, according to Just Drinks. And finally, NIQ's September on-premise read finds beer still challenged overall, with imports, non-alcoholic and draft gaining ground, per Brewbound.