Educational Sessions & Speakers

Jason Momoa and Blaine Halvorson are artists, storytellers, passionate environmentalists, and best friends. Through WSWA, they invite you on their quest to create the most sustainable liquor brand, the challenges they overcame - and the incredible journey ahead.

Join the hosts of Southern Glazer’s Served Up Podcast, Julie Milroy and Bridget Albert, for a current and thoughtful conversation about empowering equity and driving change on the beverage shelves. This discussion will offer actionable resources, skills, and tips for emerging and diverse brands entering and excelling in the beverage industry. Hosts will be joined by April Alejandro, Vice President, National Accounts On & Off Premise and champion of Southern Glazer’s newly launched Incubator Academy, a virtual platform that provides diverse- and women-owned brands unprecedented free access to foundational business learning to increase their potential for commercial success. They will be joined by Anita Parikh, Co-founder of Tigo Tequila Soda and Paige Parker, Founder and CEO of Happenstance Distilling Co.

While the sustainability of packaging is often in the crosshairs of key policymakers and stakeholders, many in the wine and spirits industry have made great strides. Attend this talk to learn about the challenges and victories associated with the sustainability of glass packaging and how, by working together, we can make a difference.

The restaurant industry is facing many challenges as we head into 2023 that include but are not limited to; labor shortage issues, leading to training shortcomings amid record highs for employee turnover. What’s more, increasing revenue and controlling costs during concerns of a recession, high inflation, and skyrocketing labor costs has become more difficult than ever to manage. Come learn first hand the benefits of batched/draft cocktails, the why and how to set your restaurant up for success. We will discuss the power of your menu, what to say and not say, and how this will play a role in driving increased sales. We will break down the barriers, ensure we don’t sacrifice quality, and offer solutions to your concerns in our live demonstration.

Ever since the advent of The Jetsons, we’ve wondered aloud just how far technology can take the human race. Indeed, the advent and evolution of artificial intelligence will permanently transform nearly every aspect of the wine and spirits industry - in fact that transformation has already started. In this talk, you’ll learn from several experts who are part of Florida International University’s Bacardi Center of Excellence. And they’ll be joined by Cecilia.ai - a “real” AI-driven bartender who can serve over 120 cocktails per hour!

Chef Robert Irvine has made a huge impact in the lives of the thousands of people connected to businesses he’s helped "overcome impossible" in creating highly successful enterprises. His lessons resonate deeply with those of us in the wine and spirits industry, because they draw on situations and circumstances to which we can relate - because we have all “been there” at one time or another.

His book, and to a lesser extent this presentation, dive deep into the lessons he’s learned in helping failing entrepreneurs in over 200 episodes of Restaurant: Impossible, as well as those he’s learned by running his own portfolio of successful companies. His takes on leadership, micromanagement, finding motivation, accountability, managing ego, authenticity, and even social media, comprise a playbook for success in whatever business you’re helping to lead. Join Chef Robert Irvine and Danny WIrtz of Breakthru Beverage Group for a fireside chat to discuss Overcoming Impossible!

How well do you understand your consumer’s feelings, values, and openness to trying new things when they’re making a drink selection? Do you know how to engage with your consumers along different points of their purchasing journey? In this session, we will look at the steps your potential customers take on their way to choosing a drink and how you can influence that decision through behavioral design. We will address how to create tailored content and strategies centered around market differentiation, trends, seasonality, and most importantly, consumer motivations. Join this session for a walk along the consumer journey to understand the experiences and needs of your target audience so you can optimize signature cocktails and grow your sales.

Hiring, developing and retaining underrepresented talent are no easy feats, but intentional inclusion could be the secret sauce you need to be successful. Join us for a powerful session to learn ways that thinking and behaving inclusively can propel your organization forward. Where inclusion lives, diversity can thrive! 

eCommerce solutions represent the first step in our shared journey of digital transformation. But the picture gets much clearer and robust as we create seamless connectivity between supplier, distributor, retailer, and consumer. When we do it right, we’ll create better decision-making capability at the ground level, enable better forecasting, foster more personalized approaches to customers and consumers, and improved sales and margins for everyone. It will require partnerships and joint projects between suppliers, distributors, customers, and critical 3rd party players. Join this discussion to understand the true power of this movement.

WSWA’s SipSource is a best-in-class product created to provide a holistic view of all 3 Tier channels to support productive fact-based discussions between supplier and distributor partners, and help drive GROWTH. SipSource is facilitated by the collaboration of multiple distributors to aggregate their data to provide that industry view - representing depletions for over 325,000 off- and on-premise accounts today. Come hear from industry veteran analysts Danny Brager and Dale Stratton, talk about:

• What this service is;
• How it can be used to assess the state of the industry;
• How it can be used to drive growth; and
• What are the latest wine and spirits trends – across both Off and On Premise channels and sub-channels.

Latin consumers’ buying power is surging in the U.S., representing nearly 20% of the population. By 2025, Latino spending power in the U.S. will top $2.3 trillion—higher than the GDP of Spain or Mexico! Join us to learn how the industry can better reach bicultural Latinx consumers, both online and in real life through brands, products, experiences, and communities that authentically represent them. 

What’s clear now is that most consumers are becoming more environmentally conscious and are rewarding the brands and industries that promote sustainability through their actions. Hence, the Beverage Industry Environmental Roundtable (BIER) is a technical coalition of leading global beverage companies working together to advance environmental sustainability within the beverage sector. During this session, discover how BIER has been the model of industry collaboration and continuously advanced the development of sustainable solutions through beverage industry-specific data collection, methodologies, standard-setting, best practice sharing, and thought leadership related to water stewardship, energy efficiency and climate change, container recycling, sustainable agriculture, and ecosystem services.

In our ever-changing world, the lines are becoming more blurred than ever. In this session, Troy will take you on a journey of the do’s and don’ts when launching your next big idea or brand. We will discuss the role of authenticity and what this actually means to distributors, retailers and customers. Are you “on trend”? What does this even mean and why is it relevant? Finally, you will hear about separating from the pack. What do you know about your competition and what will make you truly stand out?

Are businesses that are focused on becoming diverse hitting the mark with actionable, data-based research in advancing equitable outcomes? The focus on equity has become increasingly critical.

Equity necessitates an intentional focus on the needs of the historically marginalized. It requires deliberate and often courageous actions that acknowledge and eliminate the societal inequities ingrained in people, processes, and systems. It takes commitment to examining and redressing the bias and racism built into everyday decisions, which may appear fair on the surface, and which may have even been designed with good intentions, but ultimately have disparate effects on racial and ethnic minorities and other marginalized identity groups. And just as business leaders focus on financial and operational outcomes rather than just inputs, they must also focus on the outcomes of their efforts to drive systemic change.

To achieve equity, organizations must be willing to transform their beliefs and values and then change their decisions and behaviors. That work should start inside the organization, but also extend to the full range of their external relationships in the marketplace and society.

Deborah Brenner, Women of the Vine & Spirits will be joined by Kimberly Betts, Deloitte Consulting.

(Closed session for wholesaler attendees)

 With a market valuation of $13.2 billion* in 2022 and expectations for a compound annual growth rate of 14.2%* through 2030, cannabis can represent a new frontier of opportunity for wine and spirits wholesalers. During this interactive session, you’ll hear from experts some of the ways we might capitalize on the opportunity to stake our claim in this promising market. Get the latest information and gauge the possibilities for your involvement in this huge market.

 *Grand View Research Market Analysis Report: "U.S. Cannabis Market Size, Share & Trends Analysis Report By End-use (Medical, Recreational, Industrial), By Source (Marijuana, Hemp), By Derivative (CBD, THC), And Segment Forecasts, 2023 - 2030"

With integrated technology as a key driving force behind industry growth, we must be more diligent about cyber security across the ecosystem. Join our colleague from Security Risk Advisors to hear real-world stories that illustrate the risks that are out there and what we can do to better protect our companies and the industry at large.

Shifting consumer values around things like sustainability and cocktails-to-go beckon leaders to adapt their go to market strategies. What are the latest trends and topics in retail and restaurants and how can we capitalize on them? And how can brands better engage with retailers on the big bets that can have big impact on people and the planet? Hear directly from the National Restaurant Association and Walmart on what shifts they're seeing in their markets and what they’re doing about it. Learn how you can adapt and evolve to take advantage of these shifts.

Too often, truly understanding marketing efficacy is a shot in the dark, leaving many to wonder if they are investing in the highest-opportunity tactics. In this talk, Erin will compare 2022 EOY performance norms by tactic to local marketer perceptions of efficacy to demonstrate that the most popular option for marketing dollars isn’t always the best option. Join this session to understand how to better optimize your marketing spend by increasing marketing efficacy.