The billionaire owner of yogurt company Chobani said Friday that he had acquired Anchor Brewing Company, the San Francisco brewer that closed last year after 127 years.
Hamdi Ulukaya, who is also Chobani’s CEO, said in a video posted on social media that he hoped to bring Anchor Brewing back to life. The price Ulukaya paid to acquire the brewing company’s assets from a liquidator was not disclosed.
The company, said to be the oldest craft brewery in the United States, announced it would close in July 2023, citing the effects of the pandemic, inflation and a highly competitive beer market.
Anchor spokesman Sam Singer said Friday that the company was “very pleased” with the acquisition.
“He fits pretty much perfectly,” Singer said of Ulukaya, a Turkish immigrant who, since founding Chobani in 2005, has helped bring Greek yogurt to the American mainstream.
“We think it will have the same magical touch of taking a historic brewery and revitalizing it for future San Franciscans,” he said.
Anchor’s sales had been declining since 2016, and in 2017, the company was acquired for around $85 million by Japanese brewing giant Sapporo. The pandemic was particularly disruptive, Singer said last year, noting that 70 percent of Anchor’s beers were sold in restaurants and bars. Efforts to adapt, including a rebranding campaign and a shift toward bottling and canning more beers to sell in grocery stores, “could not offset the significant loss in sales,” he said.
The company’s unionized employees proposed purchasing the brewery and running it as a cooperative to keep it in business.
The acquisition announcement was applauded by Mayor London Breed of San Francisco, while critics questioned whether the company would be able to maintain its role as a community staple under a new owner.
Esther Mobley, wine critic for The San Francisco Chronicle, wrote that Anchor’s signature beer, Steam, was “an expression of the city’s singularly idiosyncratic climate.”
This is a developing story..