MLCC On The Road
The MLCC On The Road podcast is brought to you by the Michigan Liquor Control Commission (MLCC). The MLCC On The Road podcast will provide helpful information for businesses, licensees, local governmental units, and anyone interested in the alcoholic beverage industry in Michigan.
The mission of the Michigan Liquor Control Commission is to make alcoholic beverages available for consumption while protecting the consumer and the general public through regulation of those involved in the sale and distribution of these alcohol beverage products.
For more information on the MLCC, please visit our website at www.michigan.gov/lcc. To submit a question or idea for a podcast topic, please email mlccinfo2@michigan.gov.
MLCC On The Road
Data, Policy, and Public Safety: NABCA's Role in Alcohol Control
National Alcohol Beverage Control Association (NABCA) President Neal Insley joins MLCC Chair Kristin Beltzer for an insightful conversation about how control states balance commerce with public health through data-driven regulation and education.
• NABCA is a non-advocacy organization providing unbiased, factual data to its 17 member control states and other alcoholic beverage industry stakeholders
• Control states reflect diverse community needs while maintaining consistent regulation and public health protections
• Education and outreach to licensees creates transparency and compliance rather than simply "licensing and walking away"
• NABCA partners with over 30 universities on research projects related to alcohol policy and public health
The MLCC On The Road podcast is brought to you by the Michigan Liquor Control Commission (MLCC). For more information on the MLCC, please visit our website at www.michigan.gov/lcc. To submit a question or idea for a podcast topic, please email mlccinfo2@michigan.gov.
The mission of the Michigan Liquor Control Commission is to make alcoholic beverages available for consumption while protecting the consumer and the general public through regulation of those involved in the sale and distribution of these alcohol beverage products.
You're listening to the MLCC On the Road podcast brought to you by the Michigan Liquor Control Commission, with hosts Sara Weber and David Marvin. Welcome back to the MLCC On the Road podcast. I'm David Marvin and with me today is Sara Weber. Today we're recording at Detroit City Distillery where the MLCC On the Road team is hosting a live event for licensees from around the area, and on this episode we have two special guests joining us. Sara, please introduce our special guests for the podcast today.
Sara Weber:Thank you, David. I would like to introduce our first special guest, the chair of the Michigan Liquor Control Commission, Kristin Beltzer. Kristin was appointed to the commission in April of 2022 and named the chair in June of 2023. Our second special guest is Neal Insley. Neal is the president and CEO of the National Alcohol Beverage Control Association, which we commonly call NABCA. He has served in this role since October 2021. As you may recall, our very first episode, a grant from NABCA, helped fund the MLCC On the Road program and this podcast.
David Marvin:Thank you, Sara. To change up our typical format a bit, Sara and I are going to turn over the host job to Kristin for a conversation with Neal. We are excited to hear from Kristin and Neal about the important role that the control states like Michigan play in the alcoholic beverage industry and how NABCA assists member states as they work towards safe, responsible and effective regulation of alcohol. Kristin and Neal, welcome to the MLCC On the Road podcast.
Kristin Beltzer:Thank you so much, Dave and Sara. I'm Kristin Belter. I am chair of the Michigan Liquor Control Commission and I'm happy to be guest hosting today on the MLCC On the Road podcast. As you heard in the introduction, Neal Insley is the president and CEO of the National Alcohol Beverage Control Association, also called NABCA. He and his team are true champions of the 17 control states that regulate the distribution and sale of alcoholic beverages. It's so great to have Neal in Michigan. He's doing just a championship job and we welcome him here to the Detroit City Distillery today. Neal, so great to have you with us. Thanks so much for joining me.
Neal Insley:Kristin, it is great to be here in the Motor City. I have enjoyed my one day here. It seems like I've been here for three. I'll pack so much in Just a great place to be, love being up here in Michigan and a great venue here to host this podcast. Really looking forward to the discussion.
Kristin Beltzer:Absolutely. You know we have been trying to plan this for quite a while. Good to have you here. Finally, Michigan is beautiful in the summer, as you got to experience last night, and so let's talk a little bit about NABCA and the organization itself and really kind of what you do and the help that you provide, the control states and really industry stakeholders too.
Neal Insley:Absolutely Well. First I say you know people. When they talk about my title and CEO, I jokingly tell people I'm head of laundry and morale when it comes down to it. But no, NABCA is a storied organization. We've been around since the end of prohibition getting ready to celebrate our 90th annual conference in 2027. So exciting things. And we've been able to do that because of the support of our board of directors and our control jurisdictions that make up our organization.
Neal Insley:As far as NABCA, we are a 501c6 nonprofit. We are not an advocacy organization, so we don't lobby, we're non-advocacy. We pride ourselves in maintaining that straight and narrow, if you will, in providing just the facts. Some of my younger staff don't quite get the joke about you know the Joe Friday, but that's really who we are. I mean, we're just the facts and we've carved out a very special niche within the data world in particular because of the fact that people know when they get NABCA data it's unfettered, it's not biased, it's going to be accurate and the data says what the data says. Policy says what it says. It's not our job to manipulate or try and fit it to a certain narrative. Our job is to make sure it's clean and it's usable for our stakeholders and members.
Kristin Beltzer:And really the data collection has really kind of taken off. You've really kind of set NABCA apart from everybody else in terms of the product that you deliver. How are you hearing from people that it's advantageous and the kind of feedback that you're getting?
Neal Insley:It has. It has been incredible just really since my term. So I a bit of my history. I'd started my career in law enforcement and, in a moment of indiscretion, for some reason, decided to go to law school nights and weekends and became an attorney. I'm now a recovering attorney, but I did serve as chair of the Virginia ABC, under appointed by the governor, like yourself, and did that for four years until I was unappointed. But that's, you know, that's part of the game. I was very fortunate to then take a position, after having served as chair of NABCA, to be their senior vice president and general counsel for NABCA for starting in 2015. And then, as you said, in 2021, probably in their moment of indiscretion, they put me in as CEO. But I certainly have enjoyed it.
Neal Insley:But just even from that time, just watching the maturation of our data products and what we're doing, we are in the midst of a massive tech stack operation right now where we're really, after almost three decades, really just redoing our infrastructure. On our data, we've partnered with SAS out of North Carolina. They're a globally recognized data company, but they don't sell data, they're data infrastructure. So we've partnered with them. Really excited. We're hoping in October we'll start to do our parallel processing. We're still operating in our current system, our legacy system, and we'll continue to do that until such time as we feel comfortable that we can successfully do that cutover.
Neal Insley:But the opportunities that we'll have in this new platform very powerful platform it's exciting, it really is and it's really going to change the shape of NABCA, its dynamics and what it can offer. And when I say data, we're building it out robust enough that over time and we've got several phases of this project this obviously is phase one, but it won't just be sales data. We're also looking at collecting policy. We already collect policy data, regulatory data, things like that. The problem is compiling and maintaining and having it in a workable, searchable function. So ultimately all of that information will be incorporated in this platform to just have more offerings for our stakeholders that need information to help develop policy, business strategies, all of these things that they rely on our day to day to day to accomplish.
Kristin Beltzer:You've really called it like the internal engine of NABCA and you're really kind of it's branching out to into other sectors, isn't it Like financial institutions, private equity firms, and how are they using this information?
Neal Insley:They found that our data is because it's so granular and it's so accurate, we can really they can use it to go beyond the control jurisdiction. So when they look at the data set, say for sales trends, they can kind of extrapolate that out and kind of help predict where the trends may be going and, you know, use that data as kind of that base point, if you will, to really monitor how the market is doing. But even beyond that, with some of the you know some of the larger data companies or hedge funds and you know private equity firms, they also look at certain sectors and categories within consumers, consumer goods, to kind of see how things are doing. So you know alcohol is a good measure of how the overall economy may be doing, for instance, and they use it for those purposes as well. So you know it kind of covers the gamut.
Neal Insley:I jokingly say all the time that NABCA was big data before big data. We started collecting data for the states way back and we didn't really look at it as a product or monetize it until we were going into the 90s, early 90s. But I think people forget or don't know that the monetization of course is great because it allows us to do these wonderful awards that we do with the states and assist in policy and alcohol education prevention. You know, these things that are core to our mission as a nonprofit. But fundamentally the reason that the data was initially stored by NABCA or captured by NABCA was to ensure our control jurisdictions accuracy of their own data. We were kind of the custodians of that information on how they were doing what they were doing, because they wanted and trusted in their association that they knew, as I said earlier, is always going to be, you know, down the middle of the fairway and not pressured either way in how that data is perceived or applied. So it's been exciting.
Kristin Beltzer:I think so, and you know, when we have opportunities the board of directors, to get together and to hear from your team, the Dave Jacksons of the world and everybody who just wants to they are so energized by all of this and what's to come. How about, like universities? Is there any kind of space there for now that there's NIL agreements and all sorts of things like that? Is there a space for NABCA to work within that type of an arena?
Neal Insley:Yeah, we are. We currently are and we have for some time, I think since 2015, we've done projects with over 30 different universities across the country. We typically and it ranges I mean, I pulled the numbers a while back or just kind of looking down the list and we've assisted in projects with our institutions of higher education and they range from I think it's Walton Community College to Harvard Business School and, and you know just the gamut in between. Actually, here in Michigan, we've supported and done a few projects with University of Michigan and Michigan State. So we find that that is core to, kind of, our policy side of our mission and to make sure that people are using good data to make the. We're not going to get involved in what you decide to do. Ultimately, we just want to make sure that policymakers or research institutions are using the best data that they can to make those decisions or form those opinions, and it's exciting stuff and it's core to our mission.
Neal Insley:So, yes, we will continue to work with universities and colleges. We always try to be understanding of their position with our data. Again, because we're nonprofit-profit, you know we have to cover the expense of, you know, manpower, but if it's no lift for us and we can provide it. Typically we will, if it does require some work on our end. You know we will work with the university to try and reach an agreement on how best to get that data where we're not expending a lot of resource and can recapture some of that. But by and large, we work with the universities because it's important to us again and our mission to make sure that we know they're relying on good data to formulate those opinions or hypotheses. See if this you know all of these things. It's critical, the work they do, and they have done some great work. I saw a study not too long ago related to breast cancer, and fetal alcohol syndrome is another one that some of the universities worked on. So real, substantive public health, public safety work.
Kristin Beltzer:Yeah, that's great. I see that you know. As you mentioned, Michigan State and U of M and Michigan is the largest control state in dollar sales. Tell me, what kind of impact does that have on the industry as a whole?
Neal Insley:Well, I think anytime. Certainly you know your hot producers, your large markets gain a lot of attention. They're important markets because of their size and companies and this is something we preach to some of our jurisdictions and different members in supplying the data you know it's critically important because, in particular, in the business setting, because you know business need good data points. If they have good data points, they will invest in certain markets. If it's an uncertainty or they're having a hard time really getting you know clarity on what the market is, they may not make those same investments.
Neal Insley:Certainly in Michigan, with the data and the size of the market, a lot of investment goes into Michigan and great partnerships is another part of this. I don't need to tell you. But this is a relationship industry across the board. Whether you're wearing your regulator hat, your business hat, your licensing, you have to have good relationships with your stakeholders and your business partners and certainly here in Michigan. You know it's a large market. There's opportunity obviously for investment here. There's good numbers to rely on that investment and there's good working relationships with industry. So it's a you know it's a strong market there and it's a large market.
Kristin Beltzer:Well, we, you know, have over 14,000 Spirit products. I think that is probably the largest offerings. How does it compare to other states, though, in terms of kind of what they do? Because when we get together and we talk, a lot of times, it's not like apples to apples at all. You know what I do, because when we get together and we talk, a lot of times, it's not like apples to apples at all. You know what I mean. I hear from other people and and, and the work that they're doing is great and it's important as well. It's just they're on different scales, and so, um, do you, is there any kind of pushback at all on any of that? In terms of do you think that it can be too big?
Neal Insley:Yeah, and here's the beauty of the control markets and how it fits in with the 21st Amendment. And I know this is going to get a bit, I'm a bit of a constitutional geek, or I like to think I am, but you know the 21st Amendment fundamentally it envisioned or you know they envisioned that because we are such a vast country and priorities and responsibilities and morals and all these things are so different in this wonderful melting pot that we have as a country. The diversity is great. It's what makes us so strong. That being said, and again, the beauty of the 21st Amendment is what might work here in Michigan and be very successful is probably or may not work in Mississippi, or you know.
Neal Insley:So, whether it was envisioned that way or just happened by default, we've certainly seen it within the control markets.
Neal Insley:There are no two control markets that are just alike.
Neal Insley:They all have different nuances, different priorities, different populations, you know, and they have to respond to their stockholders or constituents or voters, like everybody else, and that helps develop that system in that market, the way that the people want that system or market.
Neal Insley:So I would say, you know, certainly, as far as SKUs, Michigan is the largest, followed by North Carolina and then Virginia for active SKUs. So you know, but there are other states that have different listing procedures and things that do things differently and that reflects what that market, what those folks who, at the end of the day, the people own the system. And again, I say this all the time you know our control markets have gotten really good at doing business and they but at the end of the day they're not reporting to shareholders who are just driven by profit. The shareholders of the system are the citizens of that jurisdiction and the money goes back to them. It goes back to, in some cases, very vital services education, it goes to fire and police and all of these very important infrastructure projects for highways and things like that. So the system helps support that community but at the end of the day, that community owns that system.
Kristin Beltzer:You're absolutely right and I kind of set you up on that one because you know we think that type of offering is advantageous and it works for us, and so I want to jump over.
Kristin Beltzer:You just mentioned education and you know that is so important to us too. Matter of fact, later today we're going to have an opportunity to bring some folks in and talk to them a little bit about the licensing and how to get into business. Talk a little bit. I've heard you say before and I love this line about we don't just license and walk away. I love that because that's exactly how we feel here that it is an ongoing process on education all the time. We're trying to do so much of this much more up front and give people an opportunity to understand a little bit before they get into it. Our team has just done a wonderful job in terms of getting out into communities and talking to people and letting them understand the nuances of this, because there are so many different options for them. But talk a little bit about that in terms of kind of commerce, meeting, public health and the things that NAMCA talks about and preaches about all the time.
Neal Insley:Absolutely. We filed an amicus brief several years ago in a Supreme Court case that went first one since Granholm actually to go to the Supreme Court the Tennessee retailers case. We put in our amicus brief exactly what you're talking about. The control systems are the pivot point on the scales between commerce and public health and safety. Ideally those are balanced all the time. What keeps them balanced is that the MLCCs, that the MLCCs, those regulatory licensing control systems that maintain that balance. So it is vitally important the stronger, the more balanced those are, the stronger, in my opinion, the stronger the system. But that comes to your point with a lot of effort and work in outreach, education and compliance and when I was in Virginia you're right, I did used to, that was my. We don't license and leave. We are here for the people, for the jurisdictions, for the licensee themselves and ultimately the goal is compliance.
Neal Insley:You know you often hear people talk about regulation, overregulation. I would say the biggest problem is not necessarily overregulation as much as it is inconsistent regulation. And that's where you really start to run into the problems, where some may know the ins and outs and others don't. Or you know some may be favored and some you know others aren't. When you have that consistently applied policy and regulation, it helps all markets. It produces consistency, predictability and business loves that.
Neal Insley:You know what makes them suffer is when it's hard to understand. There's people that they can't ask questions of. You know that's where things will start to fall off of the rise. So you folks here have done a wonderful job. This is a great, you know a great example of that. And getting out and having that community outreach, that transparency, answering questions as it relates to their license, their livelihoods, where they fit within the market, within the three-tier system, the importance of all of those things, it just makes for a strong system and it gets that buy-in from the stakeholders that they all feel like they're going to be heard and they know who they can call and ask if they have a question and they're going to get an answer. And if there is inconsistency or an issue with transparency, then that's the job of leadership to make sure that it is resolved. But you'll never know unless you ask the questions, and you folks are really good at getting out and asking the questions.
Kristin Beltzer:Well, we agree that it's been an opportunity for us to one kind of get out from being in an office where people don't see each other.
Kristin Beltzer:You just said it a few minutes ago about relationships and building relationships with people, and we wanted them to get out and see that our team members are people just like they are, you know what I mean. They're trying to get their kids around and do sorts of things during the day and help out their families and that kind of thing. So, you know, we wanted to make sure that we could kind of put a name and face to this and that getting out with people. And you know, now we have people who we have actually assisted and then they tell their friends and then those people call us now too. So it really has worked very, very favorably and we feel that we've been able to make a lot of headway so that they're not getting tripped up in the application process and everybody's winning so much better that way in terms of the education In regards to education and things that are going to change going forward. How do you see artificial intelligence playing into all of this?
Neal Insley:Some could argue. You know, we probably ought to get the eye down before we really concentrate on it.
Neal Insley:But no, it is certainly one of those X factors, if you will, that everybody should be thinking of, and you know I've read quite a bit on it, it you know. One thing that I saw that really just kind of put it in perspective for me was one of the experts in the field. She had written a great article and she was talking about how much you know for my generation, thinking about my two claims to fame in my age are I went to college before the internet and my first issued weapon in law enforcement was a revolver. So but you know, having gone to college before the internet and then seeing how much the internet changed the world, and this particular expert was saying you know, AI could be tenfold what we experienced most of us in our generation with the introduction of the internet. So if you think about that, I mean, it's just, it's massive and it's certainly something that we are looking at at NABCA.
Neal Insley:As I said, we're building out our tech stack. Part of that ultimately will be that machine learning, you know, AI tools incorporated in it through the SAS platform to help our customers and stakeholders to better leverage and use our data. But it's going to be everywhere and it certainly we're going to continue to see it in our sector, in the alcohol industry beverage alcohol will certainly and we do have companies already that that are are using AI and and are continuing to develop and see you know, how far they can use it, mostly on kind of that business intelligence, business analytics side. But you know, once we, once you start to talk about its use and policy and things like that, it's going to be exciting and, of course you know, a little scary, because any new technology you have to have good borders around it and make sure that it's being used properly and not being abused, or you know, all of these things that we're going to have to figure out.
Kristin Beltzer:You know, one of the things I just so admire about you and your leadership and your team is this open-mindedness, this vision, this opportunity to get better all the time and to really be that resource for the control states and others. I mean, you guys want to be the go-to and you are, and I so admire it. How do you see, or what is the potential for growth with NABCA going forward? What does some of this look like in terms of some of the goals that you and the team have, and what does NABCA look like over the next five, 10 years?
Neal Insley:That's a great question. You know I don't want to get ahead of things too much, but we internally my executive team we've got a retreat coming up where we're going to be talking a lot about that, particularly with our coming capabilities and our tech stack and some of these other things. But you know, NABCA has been, like I said, a storied organization for many, many years go-to, very stable, very trusted. But we do not and cannot rest on our laurels. You can't think that, okay, well, I came this far and that's all I need to do. You always need to be looking at what is next, and there will be a NABCA next gym and it will, you know, incorporate a lot of these things that we're seeing, you know, that are going to be of value to our stakeholders in the future on the data end, on the policy end, on research, all of these things that we're going to have to and will be involved in. But yeah, NABCA is at a stage now where we're really going to have to you know, we're very fortunate we have a great supportive board to start making some of this transition. But it's going to be an incredible opportunity and, you know, we are going to have to kind of re-envision ourselves as well as we move into the future to maintain relevant into the future to maintain relevance.
Neal Insley:You know when we, when NABCA, first started collecting data way back, you know it was, as I said, we were kind of big data before big data. The data market has just become so competitive and you know we can't rest on our laurels. That well, we have information that no, we have to make sure that we are staying up with and ahead of people in our sectors to make sure that the data that we provide is always going to be relevant and it's going to be timely and it's going to be in formats that our stakeholders can use with ease. So you know that's where we want to go. I'm not going to again I don't want to get too far out on my skis, but it is actively. You know's that's where we want to go.
Neal Insley:Uh, I'm not gonna again, I don't want to uh, get too far out on my skis, but it is actively. You know we just redid our strategic plan, as you know, um, and a lot of that is kind of baked into that as we went through our SWAT analysis and all of these things. There are a lot of headwinds in our industry. You know the big question about are they systematic, are they secular? You know that's uh, some, some won't, you know, but that's what we're trying to navigate now as well for the NABCA of the future.
Kristin Beltzer:Well, I got to tell you, Neal, I so enjoy the opportunity to be on the NABCA Board of Directors. A shout out to all of my fellow board members, because they are great people. I'm looking forward to seeing them here in the next couple of months. I appreciate the opportunity to spend some time with you to talk about the great work that you're doing. We appreciate you coming to Michigan. We're proud of the work that we're doing. I want to say thank you to Sara Weber and to Dave Marvin again for letting me be a guest host on the MLCC On the Road podcast.
Neal Insley:We appreciate the opportunity to work with you and we're looking forward to being with you in the future. Well, thank you so much. I have certainly enjoyed my time here and, as I say, we are a resource for all of our stakeholders. All you have to do is ask and we will try and find a way to get you what you need.
Kristin Beltzer:You bet, Neal. Thank you so much.
David Marvin:The MLCC On the Road podcast is brought to you by the Michigan Liquor Control Commission. For more information on the Michigan Liquor Control Commission, please visit our website at www. Michigan. gov/ lcc. Thank you for listening.
