Molson Coors Brewing Company reported net sales growth and increased income for the fiscal fourth quarter and full year ending December 30, 2007, in a press release, February 12.

Key fourth quarter results:

Key results for the Company's fiscal fourth quarter (13 weeks) ended December 30, 2007, compared to the fiscal fourth quarter (14 weeks) ended December 31, 2006, include the following:

- Net sales increased 4.5 percent to $1.6 billion.

- Net sales per barrel increased 8.5 percent to $153 per barrel.

- Excluding the impact of the additional week in the Company's fiscal 2006, total Company sales to retail (STRs) rose 1.5 percent;

- U.S. STRs rose 5.5 percent;

- Canada STRs grew 0.7 percent;

- Europe segment STRs declined 6.0 percent.

- Sales volume declined 3.7 percent to 10.5 million barrels, or 12.3 million hectoliters (HLs), due entirely to an additional week in the same quarter last year.

- Cost of goods sold increased 5.5 percent to $978.6 million.

- Marketing, general and administrative expenses were 3.3 percent lower, at $419.7 million.

- U.S. GAAP (generally accepted accounting principles) net income rose 74.5 percent to $173.2 million.

- Excluding special and other one-time items, income from continuing operations (after tax) was $133.0 million or $0.73 per diluted share, a 23.6 percent increase compared to $107.7 million or ...More Info

Scottish & Newcastle has announced its intention to close its Berkshire Brewery operations, on the outskirts of Reading, by early 2010, in a press release, February 12. It will immediately commence consultation with affected employees at the site on the impact of the closure of Berkshire Brewery. The consultation process will include full support for all employees affected.

Our intention follows the announcement in November 2007, of the closure of bottling facilities at the site, and the transfer of 3m hectolitres of production to Coors Brewers Ltd, under a contract brewing agreement.

S&N has carried out a detailed review of the site, and concluded that closure is currently the most viable option going forward. These plans have been shared with the Heineken & Carlsberg consortium as part of the due diligence.

The intention would be to transfer residual brewing and packaging work progressively to other S&N sites including Tadcaster in Yorkshire, the Royal Brewery in Manchester and Dunston, Gateshead. If fully implemented, the net effect of these changes would be a saving of £13m per annum from S&N’s cost base, which will enable it to remain competitive within the UK market.

Every effort will be made to seek alternative employment for those affected including ...More Info

In 2007 the domestic sales of Kompania Piwowarska (KP), the largest brewery in Poland, exceeded 14.1m hl of beer, reflecting a 13.6% increase in comparison with 2006, Polish market reported February 12.

The highest growth rate was witnessed in the first six months of the year, when sales volume increased by 21% year on year. For the year as a whole the company increased its share of the domestic market by approximately 2 p.p., to 40%.

Interestingly, export sales volume increased much more significantly, by 67% to more than 304,000 hl, and Kompania Piwowarska therefore became the leading exporter of Polish beer. The most important foreign markets for the company were: the UK, Germany, Ireland, Canada and the USA.

According to the general director of KP, Dieter Schulze, in 2008 sales of beer on the Polish market will increase but not as vigorously as they did in 2007. The main reason why the growth rate may slow is the comparatively unavoidable increases in beer prices, a result of the recent substantial rises in the prices of components and packaging.

The Association of Beer Industry Employers estimates that sales of beer in 2008 may grow by less than 5%.

Danish beer giant Carlsberg has launched syndication of 2.567 billion pounds ($5.01 billion) of loans backing its joint-bid with Heineken for UK brewer Scottish & Newcastle (S&N), the arranging banks said, according to Reuters, February 11.

Carlsberg and Heineken agreed to buy S&N last month for 7.8 billion pounds, carving up Britain's biggest brewer.

Bookrunners BNP Paribas, Danske Bank, Lehman Brothers and Nordea Bank are targeting a select group of banks in syndication and a bank meeting has been scheduled for Feb. 15 in Copenhagen.

The loan, which totals 2.772 billion pounds, includes a non-syndicated 205 million pound, one-year term loan which will be held by the arranging banks.

The remaining syndicated portion is split between three tranches -- a 1.027 billion pound, three-year term loan, a 770 million pound, five-year term loan and a 770 million pound, five-year revolving credit facility.

Lenders are invited to commit either 185 million pounds or 115 million pounds to the deal.

Heineken's part of the takeover will be funded through committed debt facilities arranged by Credit Suisse, Bank of America, Barclays, BNP Paribas, Citibank, Fortis, HSBC, ING and JP Morgan.

Unicer Angola plans to build a factory to produce Super Bock beer in Angola, the company’s sales director said in Luanda, Macauhub reported February 12.

Without giving details, Marcos Pereira said in a press conference that the company planned to increase its sales of the product in Angola, where in 2007 it sold a record 108 million liters of beer.

According to Angolan news agency Angop, Pereira said that by opening a factory in Angola Unicer planned to promote the Super Bock brand in the country and become a Portuguese company with an Angolan workforce.

“Negotiations for opening a factory in Angola are progressing. We want to set Unicer up,” Pereira said to explain the reason for the negotiations.

Royal Grolsch NV reported full year 2007 net profit of 19.974 mil euro, up from 19.170 mil in 2006 in its final year as an independent company ahead of its looming takeover by SABMiller PLC, Thomson Financial reported February 13.

Sales for the period were 332.9 mil euro, up from 317.5 mil in 2006, while EBITDA was 58.8 mil compared with 56.2 mln in 2006.

Grolsch added that it will not pay a dividend over 2007 due to the fact SABmiller has declared its offer for the company unconditional.

SABMiller holds or has acceptances to 96.23 pct of Grolsch shares and settlement of the offer is expected on Feb 12.

Grolsch said its Dutch operations achieved growth in both volume and market share following the introduction of a new green bottle.

Grolsch International saw volume grow by more than 20 pct, while volumes in the UK fell by more than 10 pct in a 'sharply declining market'.

The brewer also said it will introduce a new green swing-top bottle throughout the world, starting with the Dutch domestic market at the end of April.

The new green bottle will replace the Dutch brewer's brown swing-top bottle.

Malt export licence bookings in the EU-27 were 1,103 Mill. tons from July 1, 2007 till January 29, 2008, 30.000 tons more than a year ago, analysts reported February 4. If exports continue at the same pace, the annual figure may still reach 1.9 Mill. tons, 150.000 tons more than during the past campaign.

Former exports of 2,3 to 2,5 Mill. tons cannot be repeated with present reduced capacities and a larger domestic demand, which includes the new EU member countries. The EU is swamped with malt inquiries, which cannot be satisfied in 2008 and most likely not in 2009, either. New capacities under construction or in the planning stage will alleviate the tight supply situation from 2010 onwards unless beer consumption grows even faster.

The French farm ministry slightly lifted on its estimate of the country's area sown with winter soft wheat ahead of the 2008 harvest but lowered its forecast for the barley and rapeseed sowings, Reuters reported February 11. The farm ministry cut its estimate of France's 2008 winter barley area to 1.21 million hectares, against 1.23 million hectares seen in December. That would be 2.5 percent higher than last year and around 10 percent above the five-year average.

The European Union should see its cereals harvest rise by 10.3 percent in 2008, based on increased plantings and a projected upward trend in yields, European Commission agriculture sources said, according to Reuters, February 12.

Barley output would rise by 3.2 percent from 2007 to 59.9 million tonnes.

The figures are based on winter planting data provided by national farm authorities across the EU's 27 member countries and yield trends projected into likely spring cereal plantings.

The EU's area sown with barley was expected to rise by 2.6 percent from last year.

The barley crop result is much better than officially and privately forecast in December, estimates from 5.6 to 6.3 Mill. tons, according to analysts, February 4.

Figures did not improve at all in the East and little in the South, but the Western barley crop turned out to be really good, particularly in the south (Esperance). The export surplus may reach 2.0 Mill. tons, of which close to 1.0 Mill. tons of malting barley. Known export sales are 800.000 tons.

U.S. brewer Anheuser-Busch Cos Inc has offered a new 2008 malting barley contract spurned by Canadian maltsters and grain companies, according to Reuters, February 11.

The brewer is the first to agree to offer farmers new "CashPlus" contracts based on sales made by the agency, which has a government-granted monopoly on western Canadian malting barley.

"The rather significant tonnage is almost full, so that would seem to indicate that farmers are eager to sign up for this program," said Maureen Fitzhenry, a CWB spokeswoman.

Canadian maltsters and grain companies have refused to participate in the program, saying it would not provide strong enough price signals to entice farmers to grow barley instead of other crops, and would be costly and cumbersome to use.

The agency hopes that will soon change, Fitzhenry said.

"We are talking right now to other companies and we do expect that more contracts will be available soon," she said.

Late on Friday, bids from Anheuser-Busch subsidiary BARI-Canada Inc. were posted on the Agri-ville.com Web site by contributors identifying themselves as farmers.

Anheuser-Busch was unable to comment on Monday.

Greg Kostal, an independent market analyst, said he recommended the contracts with Anheuser-Busch for some farmers he works with.

"The price offerings were such that ... it ...More Info

M. Váňová1, J. Hajšlová(2), P. Havlová(3), P. Matušinsky(1), K. Lancová(2), D. Spitzerová(1)
(1) Agricultural Research Institute Kroměříž, Ltd., Czech Republic (2) Institute of Chemical Technology, Prague, Czech Republic (3) Research Institute of Brewing and Malting, Brno, Czech Republic

Abstract
The effects of different fungicides in four-year trials with a susceptible variety of spring barley, which was grown in field conditions with two previous crops (sugar beet and corn) and artificially inoculated with spores of Fusarium, were investigated. Field trials were laid down in plots of the Agricultural Research Institute Kroměříž, Ltd. (235 m above sea level, average annual temperature 8.7°C, annual precipitation sum 599 mm) in 2000–2003. The variety Kompakt, which was very sensitive to Fusarium head blight (FHB) in other trials, was used in all the trials examined. Incidence and severity of FHB and control with fungicides were measured by deoxynivalenol (DON) contamination of grain and malt. The content of Fusarium trichothecenes was evaluated in one fraction of kernels (diameter 2.5 mm) which is used in malting technology process. In 2000 and 2001, the treatments without adjuvants were applied. In the following two years, Silwet L-77 adjuvant (0.1 l/ha) was used with different rates of water (250 and 150 l/ha in 2002 and 2003, respectively). In all years, DON content increased in most cases a��er the grain samples were malted. The conditions of high grain moisture, moderate temperature and high relative humidity provide an ideal environment for Fusarium growth during germination. The greatest reduction of mycotoxins was achieved using a combination of azole fungicides with tebuconazole or metconazole or a mixture of metconazole + famoxadone + flusilazole with the addition of Silwet L-77 and a low rate of water.
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