InBev, announced its results for the first quarter of 2008 (1Q08), in a press release, May 8.

• Total volumes: total volumes declined by 0.4% in the quarter, while our own beer volumes were 0.7% below last year, driven primarily by weak industry performance in Brazil.

• Revenue growth: total revenue grew by a solid 4.8% during 1Q08, while revenue per Hl grew 5.2%

• Cost of Sales: consolidated cost of sales (CoS) per Hl grew by 9.9% in 1Q08, reflecting the impact of higher input costs year-on-year (yoy) versus a very low base in 1Q07.

• Continued expense control: operating expenses rose modestly, as a result of anticipated sales and marketing expenses; while administrative expenses declined by 2.5%.

• EBITDA: despite revenue growth of 4.8% and further administrative expense reduction, normalized EBITDA was essentially flat for the quarter (+0.7%), as a result of a strong increase in cost of sales and phasing in commercial expenses. EBITDA margin ended the quarter at 30.7%, an organic decline of 124 basis points.

• Earning Per Share: Normalized EPS was 0.44 versus 0.46 during the same quarter of last year.

• Returning cash to shareholders: InBev returned a total of 518 million euro during the 1Q08, as a result of acquiring 322 million euro of InBev shares ...More Info

UK-based beer manufacturer SABMiller plans to more than double its capacity in India in the next five years with an investment of around Rs 2,000 crore (approx 500 million dollars), The Economic Times published May 7.

"We will spend around 500 million dollars to modernise our existing facilities and increase our production capacity to more than double in the country in the next five years," SABMiller India Director, Corporate Affairs and Communication, Sundeep Kumar told PTI.

The company, which market and produce beer brands such as Foster, Royal Challenge and Haywards in the country, is gearing up its capacity to meet the growing demand of beer in India, he said.

SABMiller has 10 facilities in India with production capacity of around 50 million cases per annum, which is expected to be around 105 million cases pa by the end of 2013, he said.

The company is targeting a growth of around 15 per cent per annum for the next five years, he said, adding that it, however, has no plans to set up any greenfield manufacturing unit in the country.

SABMiller has around 36 per cent share in the domestic beer market and is the second largest beer maker in the country.

The beer manufacturer has ...More Info

Beer sales have started poorly in the EU, weather did not help the brewing industry, analysts have recetly reported.

In Russia leading brewers warned that the time of double-digit increases of beer sales is over, but the industry remains on an expansion course. The same is true for China, however, the Olympic Games should push sales this summer. It is a pity that beer quality is low, with the lowest malt use per unit of beer in the world. We wonder whether China can continue to replace malt by large amounts of adjuncts, because maize and especially rice have become much more expensive as well.

Latin America and even North America, Southeast Asia and Africa are expected to do well again this year, as seen by first quarter reports of brewing companies.

SABMiller Plc. said it will acquire CJSC Sarmat, one of Ukraine's largest brewers, Thomson Financial reported May 8.

The company did not disclose the purchase price but said Sarmat's gross assets were worth around $130 million.

SABMiller Europe managing director Alan Clark said the deal marked the company's entry into the fast-growing Ukraine market, which grew roughly 14 percent in the four years to 2006.

Carlsberg, the new owner of Scottish & Newcastle's Brasseries Kronenbourg last week said that, as part of its new governance structure, the French company is to report directly to CEO Jørgen Buhl Rasmussen during its integration process, according to FlexNews, May 5.

Buhl Rasmussen sees the integration of the Alsace brewer as a challenge. Talking to the French financial press, he said that he wants to grow Kronenbourg’s profitability by 40% in the next 3 years.

He believes that the French company can increase its sales by focussing on high-quality beers, which have been less impacted by consumption drops than regular beers (a 3% drop over the last 20 years), as well as by growing its market share in bars and restaurants, which currently stands at 34%, he told reporters.

Meanwhile, he added that extra efforts will be made to establish Kronenbourg better in the foreign markets. Buhl Rasmussen sees northern Europe and Eastern Europe as possible destinations for the French beer.

The financial press mentioned that the Carlsberg CEO did not disclose any information concerning a possible restructuring of the Kronenbourg, which employs approximately 1,500 people. However, he did not rule out the transfer of some of Kronenbourg’s activities, such as the accountancy ...More Info

A report that Diageo is to close part of its historic Guinness brewery in Dublin is “pure speculation”, the group says, according to Drinks International, May 6.

Diageo is poised to announce it will sell a significant part of the St James’s Gate brewery site, a report in the Times newspaper said this weekend.

A Diageo spokesperson confirmed to Drinks International that the firm is nearing the end of a 12-month review of its brewing operations in Ireland, but she dismissed rumours about the Guinness site as “pure speculation”.

Guinness has been brewed at St James’s Gate since 1759.

Whatever the outcome of the review, it is thought unlikely Diageo would abandon the site completely. Tourists still flock to see the place where Guinness was born. And the black stuff’s all-important ingredient, known as the ‘essence of Guinness’, can only be sourced from St James’s Gate and the Waterford brewery.

Diageo currently operates four breweries in Ireland.

Lower prices in barley markets provoked a further slow-down of malt sales, as is usual in declining markets, analysts have recently reported.

Interesting: malt markets do not reflect the full extent of the down trend of barley markets. Reasons are: 1) maltsters cannot buy large quantities of new crop barley, farmers and first hand are hardly in the market, and the second hand market is very thin; 2) maltsters are already well sold for the calendar year 2009, they are in the comfortable position to pick their customers and business carefully; 3) maltsters have to cope with the constant rise of energy prices. The present market shows an advantage of long-term agreements. Within existing LTA’s barley prices can be fixed fairly easily on basis of known market quotes, while all the above mentioned factors come into play for regular malt business.

It is difficult to name realistic market prices at present, they differ from seller to seller and they differ from region to region. Domestic prices for malt of crop 2008 inside the EU are ranging from EUR 520,- to 540,-, export prices FOB in bulk in container are at similar levels. Prices for 2008 delivery are higher, provided one finds ...More Info

The malting barley market is still little developed in new crop while in old crop the transactions are absent, La Depeche published May 8. The quotations are almost unchanged from a week to another with operators assured by the good weather in French main producing regions. On the other hand, the weather conditions are worrying in the North of the EU where there is a need of some rain.

Feed barley quotations are higher than last week following the prices for wheat.

Most farmers in the EU, particularly the Germans, continue their withholding policies, analysts reported May 2.

And premiums are too low to keep farmers away from shifting larger acreage to wheat and oilseeds in 2009. An abundant supply of malting barley this year could turn into renewed tightness in 2009. EU barley prices, feed and malting, will also be influenced strongly by world markets.

High price levels have eliminated restitutions (export subsidies) and minimized the risk of import taxes, the doors to and from world markets are fully open. EU barley exports, mainly feed barley, were 3.6 Mill. tons from July 2007 till end April of this year. For domestic consumption the EU imported almost no barley, but 12.1 Mill. tons of maize and 4,3 Mill. tons of sorghum.

Arable farmers in Angus, Tayside, are set to invest £13-14 million in a new 90,000 tonne capacity advanced grain processing plant at Glenesk, Montrose, to cash in on Scotland’s expanding market for malting barley, FWi Reported May 7.

Farmers claim it will be the first fully integrated supply chain operation of its kind in the UK and will be unique in having a direct conveyor link to Greencore’s adjoining maltings (pictured).

Savings in transport costs alone from moving grain direct from farm to the new store – rather than to a third-party store – are estimated at £15-20/tonne plus the value which will be added by delivering a more consistent product processed in a modern, central plant and on-tap availability to the maltings.

“The investment in this state-of-the-art facility will be worth it just for the benefit of getting grain moved quickly at harvest time without the risk of rejection on arrival at the maltings,” said David Fairlie, Kikrton, Monikie, Dundee, who is one of eight Angus farmers behind the project, which is to be known as the Angus Cereal Partnership.

Storage

The first phase of the development for half the eventual projected storage capacity – 45,000 tonnes – is due for completion in time for ...More Info

The Japanese breweries are still the most important customers for Czech hops, the critical situation on the hop market lead to the increase in hop imports, Hop-growers Union of the Czech Republic has recently reported.

With regards to the below average results of hop crops 2006 and 2007 in the Czech Republic there was also a reduction in the amount of exported hops. In the case of hop pellets there was a 15 % reduction compare to year 2006. In the past period there was a decrease mainly in the export of cone hops, the quantity of exported hop pellets remained in the last 14 years stable at around 3300 t of hop pellets (which is around 4200 t of dry cone hops).

The main part of hop pellets was again exported to Japan, altogether 1750 t. The Japanese breweries Asahi, Kirin, Sapporo and Suntory are the largest customers for Czech hops and take around 40 % of the Czech hop crop (variety Saaz).

TOP 10 destinations of hops from the Czech Republic in 2007:

1. Japan 2. Germany 3. Poland 4. China 5. Russia 6. Great Britain 7. South Africa 8. Belgium 9. Vietnam 10. India

„In the last ten years hops and hop products from the Czech Republic were directly exported to over 73 countries of ...More Info

EVA ČONKOVÁ1, ANNA LACIAKOVÁ1, IGOR ŠTYRIAK (2), LUDWIK CZERWIECKI (3) and GRAŻYNA WILCZYŃSKA (3) 1) Institute of Pharmacy and Pharmacology, University of Veterinary Medicine in Košice, Košice, Slovak Republic; 2)Institute of Animal Physiology, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Košice, Slovak Republic; 3) Institute of Agricultural and Food Biotechnology, Warsaw, Poland

Abstract
ČONKOVÁ E., LACIAKOVÁ A., ŠTYRIAK I., CZERWIECKI L., WILCZINSKA G. (2006): Fungal contamination and the levels of mycotoxins (DON and OTA) in cereal samples from Poland and East Slovakia. Czech J. Food Sci., 24: 33–40. The cereal samples were taken immediately after harvest from the selected localities of Poland (45 samples) and East Slovakia (60 samples). Fungal contamination of these samples was investigated and subsequently the presence of two important mycotoxins, deoxynivalenol (DON) and ochratoxin A (OTA), was quantitatively examined. Concerning mould contamination, no difference was observed between the samples from Poland and East Slovakia. The highest incidence was observed of Fusarium, Aspergillus, and Penicillium genera. However, most of the investigated samples of wheat, rye, and barley contained less than 104 cfu/g. The limit 750 ppb for DON in cereals and their products, recommended by the European Mycotoxin Awareness Network (EMAN), was exceeded only by one wheat sample (4.5%) from Poland, but by seven wheat samples (14.6%) from Slovakia. None cereal sample investigated for OTA exceeded the allowed limit – 5 µg/kg. Keywords: wheat; rye; barley; microscopic fungi; ochratoxin A (OTA); deoxynivalenol (DON) ... Load full article, 8 pages, 206 Kb, PDF file