Gallo Enters Beer Category Through Strategic Partnership With Montucky Cold Snacks

On Wednesday, leading wine, spirits, and RTD supplier Gallo announced a “strategic investment” in Montucky Cold Snacks, marking the conglomerate’s first venture into the beer category.

Founded in 2012 by Chad Zeitner and Jeremy Gregory, Montana-based Montucky Cold Snacks has garnered a massive following for its crisp, 4.1-percent ABV American-style lager. Marketed as a domestic premium lager, Montucky has experienced explosive growth in the past five years, with sales increasing from 130,000 cases to nearly one million in 2023. The beer brand hopes to achieve even more growth under the Gallo umbrella.

“Montucky was created to be a refreshing, fun, irreverent, and most importantly, snackable alternative to premium domestic brands,” Gregory said in a press release. “We believe the key to our consumer loyalty is our commitment to be good, do good, and have fun, for both consumers and employees. We have worked hard to build on these principles since inception, and we believe Gallo is the perfect complement to help us continue this goal.”

According to the release, Gallo says the sessionable brand exhibits a “special kind of consumer enthusiasm” allowing for the company to expand its Total Alcohol Beverage portfolio, which includes beloved brands like High Noon, Fishers Island Lemonade, Salt Point, and Waterbird. While full terms of the investment were not disclosed, it’s confirmed that both Zeitner and Gregory will remain onboard.

“Entering beer offers Gallo an exciting new opportunity to reach consumers in different usage occasions, and we look forward to collaborating and growing Montucky across the beer distributor network,” said Britt West, executive vice president and general manager at Gallo in the release. “We believe core lager is a big category with room for fresh and innovative positions. We are super excited that Chad and Jeremy have agreed to stay on and help Montucky reach its full potential.”

VP Pro Take

“MCS gives Gallo an angle on a powerful lifestyle brand that sold nearly a million cases in 2023 to a complementary drinker for its bestselling vodka-soda brand. Customer continuity, we love to see it don’t we folks?

Gallo has no direct experience in the beer business, but it has sniffed at it over the years (remember Bartles & Jaymes?) and with wine reeling, beer flat-to-down, and spirits-based RTDs still going strong, it’s an opportune time to take a behind-the-scenes look at the brewing business to see whether there’s more runway.

With its new stake in MCS, Gallo gets a piece of a growth brand with a compelling story that’s simpatico with its most important single-serve SKU in High Noon (good), and a beer-side vantage point on the ‘total beverage’ convergence (better).” —Dave Infante, VinePair columnist, podcast host, and contributing editor

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