Alcoholic beverage distributors

 The FCC investigates and regulates not just the industries we all know about, but also industries that quietly do a lot of the heavy lifting in ordinary lines of business.  Here's report of a (possible) FTC probe that sheds light on distributors of alcoholic beverages, in which big businesses I hadn't previously heard of operate in a much more concentrated fashion than I would have guessed.

Politico has the story:

Feds target alcohol pricing in new antitrust probe. The FTC has a similar investigation involving the soft drink market.

"The Federal Trade Commission has opened an investigation into the largest U.S. alcohol distributor, Southern Glazer’s Wine and Spirits, over practices related to how wine and liquor are priced and sold around the country, according to three people with knowledge of the probe.

"The FTC is investigating Southern Glazer’s Wine and Spirits for possible violations of the Robinson-Patman Act, a 1936 law prohibiting suppliers from offering better prices to large retailers at the expense of their smaller competitors, according to the people.

...

"According to a December 2022 Forbes report, Southern Glazer is the 11th largest privately held company in the U.S., with around $25 billion in revenue and distributing over 7,000 different brands of alcohol, wine, beer and other beverages. Republic National Distributing Company, the second largest alcohol distributor, which is not known to be a target in the probe, had 2022 revenues of around $12 billion, according to Forbes. Combined, the two companies account for the bulk of U.S. alcoholic beverage distribution.