The food seller of Oxnard, California, who has earned his life by selling sugary drinks called Agua Frescas, received a new personalized street cart and $ 5,000 to raise his business. The check has come to a new range of products from the Modelo Beer brand, According to a press release from the company. “I launched this company to reach both ends, but what I was not prepared for is the number of love and support that I received from my community. They rallied behind me to support my business and my dream, “said Gutierrez, who thanked Modelo and said that he would use the new basket to” make my daughters proud “. Later this year, Modelo Created a ghost cuisine In New York to commemorate Día de Los Muertos, with dishes like tacos of beaten fish and Pollo Asado in a marinade of beer citrus. All the dishes were developed by Hispanic leaders to celebrate the inheritance of their deceased relatives.
The efforts to reach the Latin American community and their portfolios over the years have borne fruit: in 2023, Modelo has marked a major coup, becoming the most popular beer in the United States, beating Bud Light. But there are signs that anxiety and fears of immigration from the Trump era during ice raids modify the expenditure habits of Latin consumers, spelling problems for brands that appeal to this cohort. (Constellation Brands, the company which controls Modelo in the United States, refused FortuneThe request for an interview and refused to comment on this story.)
Constellation, which also distributes Corona and Pacifico, is at number 418 from the Fortune 500 list. Net beer sales for the company have remained relatively unchanged for the fourth quarter of 2024. But shipments to retail customers were At the bottom of 1%Widely motivated by decreases in Especial Modelo, Corona Extra and La Modelo Chelada, according to the company. The Constellation has also lowered its prospects for the growth rate for net beer sales for the year 2026 0% and 3%from 4% to 7% For 2025.
The backdrop: while the ice activity heats up, Latin buyers seem to be absent and roughly. According to a mid-May in Kantar, a marketing and analysis data company, the purchases of supermarkets from the Latinos fell 11.3% in the first quarter of 2025, compared to the same time last year. Pharmacie visits fell by 7.5% and convenience store visits dropped by 9.7%. This is compared to 1.9% decreases, 1.5% and 2.3% for non -Hispanic buyers, respectively. Meanwhile, more Hispanic buyers turn to online purchases instead of presenting themselves in stores; Online purchases increased by 7% among this group between the fourth quarter of 2024 and the first quarter of 2025.
“Modelo is more than 50% Hispanic in terms of its demographic base,” said William A. Newlands, president and chief executive officer of Constellation Brands, during a call for results of April. “So, this drop in efforts to go to restaurants, to have social gatherings, things that are a lot of beer, have softened in the more recent term. And it will be essential to monitor how this impact continues or does not continue, as we advance. ”
How Modelo won the first prize
Bud Light’s collaboration with the influencer Trans Dylan Mulvaney in 2023 led to an anti-trans reaction and a boycott of beer, bringing up Bud Light from place number one among American consumers. This left an opening for Especial Modelo to catch first place.
A big factor in the success of the brand was its resonance with the increasingly powerful US Consumer Latino. While Newlands said that Modelo clientele was around 50% Hispanic, executive vice-president and president of the beer division, James A. Sabia, said during the presentation of the company’s conference in May that around 35% of its overall sales volume in all its various brands went to Hispanic customers.
The company has been the power of the growth of the beer industry for more than a decade, Benj Steinman, president of Beer Market Industries, the first commercial publisher of the brewing industry, says Fortune. Between 2014 and 2024, the constellation increased American beer production by 137.9%, from 13 million barrels to 31 million barrels during the decade. During this same period, the company also spent on the one hand market share of 6.1 to 15.8 market share, gaining nearly 10 action points.
“The constellation had this strong Hispanic wind which is absolutely one of the main factors of its growth,” explains Steinman.
Gerald Pascarelli, Director General of Actions Research at Needham and Company, agrees. “Modelo would have exceeded the light of Bud, just given the growth trajectory they had,” he said. “Hispanics are generally a very good cohort to have an exhibition.”
Approximately 19.3% of the country identifies as Hispanic or Latino, According to the American censusA group that has considerably increased its spending power over the past decade. The economic production of this cohort increased from $ 1.6 billion in 2010 to 4 dollars in 2023, according to the American Latin GDP report Released by California Lutheran University and UCLA Health. But the group experienced a significant drop in spending from one year to the next compared to non -Hispanic buyers, according to the Kantar report.
“It does not necessarily seem that it is an economic concern that stimulates this behavior,” explains Mary Brett Whitfield, main vice-president of Kantar Retail. “We see Hispanic buyers hold back because of what is happening in a broader socio -political environment. There are a lot of tension points for them. ”
Admittedly, business is always good for the constellation. Consolidated net sales increased by 2.41% for the last financial year, and beer sales increased by 4.6%. Analysts are optimistic about the company’s prospects, and Pascarelli calls for long-term purchasing power for Latinos in the “very favorable” United States. But the constellation must still resist this time in time, he adds, and the “disproportionate pressure given to the demographic composition of their portfolio”.
How Trump policies affect companies
The constellation is not the only major brand by looking closely at how the repression of Trump’s immigration affects business. Several large consumer-oriented companies, including Keurig Dr Pepper, Walmart and Coca-Cola, have publicly explained how immigration policies could have an impact on their results.
Newlands recently declared during a presentation of the conference of the company that she had already diversified customers for brands like Modelo, and would continue to do so in the future. “Modelo was 80% Hispanic several years ago. Today, it is 55%. So we spent a lot of time, a lot of energy, a lot of media dollars are developing on this consumer market. And I think we are in good position to continue to see this develop over time,” he said.
Constellation leaders have also said that they would continue to spend in marketing, which, according to industry observers, will be important. According to Whitfield, paying attention to how buyers buy differently will also be essential.
“I think that part of the solution may not focus on the test of necessarily bringing Hispanic buyers to the store, but to keep Hispanic buyers in the retailer ecosystem,” she said. “It may be an opportunity for retailers or brands to target these buyers on applications … Sell[ing] via online mechanisms … I certainly expect the brands to start thinking [that]. “”
The constellation seems to think of it as a short -term problem, and Newlands referred to “short -term opposite winds” during a recent call for results.
“We believe that there are still a lot of opportunities for our business in the future that most of what’s going on is socio-economic problems which, in our view, will moderate over time,” he said. “The question is, what is this time horizon? It’s a bit difficult to answer.”
