Heineken N.V. announced its results for the first six months of 2008 on its official Web site on August 27.

The brewer’s organic net profit grew by 5.3%, driven by higher pricing across most markets. Net profit (beia) was slightly lower at EUR 540 million (EUR 548 mln in H1 last year), due to a negative currency effect and higher interest charges related to the financing of acquisitions.

Organic EBIT (beia) was up by 7.5%. EBIT (beia) increased to EUR 925 mln (EUR 861 mln in H1 2007).

The company’s revenue growth constituted 17.1% (EUR 6.411 mln), of which 6.7% was organic.

Consolidated beer volume grew by15.0% to 58.6 million hectolitres (51.0 mln hl in H1 2007).

First time consolidation accounted for 9.6% of the growth, and 5.4% was organic, driven by strong performances in Africa, Central and Eastern Europe and Asia Pacific. Volume in Western Europe and the USA was lower as markets were affected by weakening economies, the company said.

Heineken brand growth of 5.8% was registered in the international premium segment to 12.9 million hectolitres, gaining share.

The brewer reported additional gross cost savings of EUR 84 million related to the F2F cost reduction programme. Improvement in the fixed cost ratio ...More Info

Diageo PLC, the world's largest producer and distributor of alcoholic drinks, had an 8.1 percent drop in second-half profit on higher costs for barley and energy and said commodity expenses will increase further in the next year, Bloomberg informed on August 28.

Net income for the six months ended June 30 fell to 546 million pounds ($1 billion) from 594 million pounds a year earlier, according to full-year figures reported by London-based Diageo today. Profit gained 8.9 percent in the first half.

The company’s official site posted on August 28 a 7 percent increase in full year net sales. Also, the following results were made public:

• Operating profit was 9% up (£2.226 mln).

• Underlying eps registered a 11% increase.

• Marketing spend increased 5%. Excluding Korea, marketing spend on non ready to drink brands increased 8%.

• Operating exceptional charge of £78 million in the year ended 30 June 2008 in respect of the restructuring of the Irish brewing operations

• Interest charge increased £90 million to £341 million

• Eps before exceptional items increased from 54.8 pence in 2007 to 60.6 pence in 2008, which excluding acquisitions, disposals and exchange is an 11% increase ...More Info

Estonia’s largest brewery Saku Õlletehase AS ended the reporting period with a net profit of 51.541 million kroons (3.294 million euros), a 23.403 million kroon improvement year-over-year, the company’s official site announced on August 27.

Sales revenue for the first six months of 2008 was 456.9 million kroons (29.2 million euros) including export revenue of 32 million kroons (2.0 million euros).

Total revenue amounted to 457.0 million kroons (29.2 million euros), a 7.2 million kroon decrease year-over year, while expenses for the period totalled 384.5 million kroons (24.6 million euros), up 4.2 million kroons year-over year. Expenses have grown on account of an increase in the prices of goods, materials and services and a rise in personnel expenses which expanded by 3.2 million kroons (year-over-year) to 50.1 million kroons.

At 30 June 2008, the equity of Saku Õlletehase AS stood at 302.4 million kroons (19.3 million euros), 40.9 million kroons or 15.6% up on a year ago.

According to the market research company AC Nielsen, Saku is the leader of the Estonian beer market in terms of summarised retail sales of own brands. At the end of June 2008, the market share of Saku beers was 46.0% in quantitative terms and 47.8% in ...More Info

Heineken Ireland posted a 3 per cent rise in turnover and “static” sales volumes in the first half of 2008, the Irish Times reported on August 28.

The company said, lower alcohol consumption levels mean 2008 will prove to be “another challenging year” for the beer industry.

The brewer, which employs 420 people in Ireland, increased its turnover to €156 million despite a 0.4 per cent decline in the total Irish beer market over the period.

Turnover and earnings grew as a result of price increases implemented during the period, while the performance was also underpinned by strong sales of Heineken and Coors Light lagers.

Heineken Ireland continued to benefit from a switch in consumer allegiances from stout to lager. Volumes in the lager market are up 1 per cent on 2007 while, after a decade of decline, stout volumes are close to levelling off.

“2008 will provide another challenging year for the industry with changes in consumer lifestyle and a decline in alcohol consumption. Outperforming a declining market with a strong trading performance is a very positive result for us,” said Heineken Ireland corporate affairs manager Declan Farmer.

The success of the Munster rugby team in the Heineken Cup helped boost the parent brand, which ...More Info

Bulgaria’s Zagorka beer is successfully performing on the global market, Standart News cited Zagorka Brewery’s general manager Jan van Karnebeek on August 28.

According to Mr van Karnebeek, the export of Zagorka products grew by 80% during the first six month of this year. The major part of the exported volume went to the USA, UK, Germany, Greece, and Thailand.

The investments in the brewery in H1 amounted to more than EUR 9.7 mln and were used for modernisation and increasing the production capacity. The company’s H1 (ended in June) EBITDA was more than EUR 3.3 mln, which exceeded financial forecasts by 40%.

In H1 2008 Zagorka sold more than 830 mln hl of beer thus becoming an incontestable leader with a more than 30% share on the Bulgarian market.

Efes Breweries International and Heineken N.V. have completed the creation of a joint venture in Serbia. The partners are to create a similar enterprise in Kazakhstan as well, Vesti communicated on August 27.

Heineken owns 72% of the joint venture – the Central Europe Beverages holding based in the Netherlands. The remaining 28% belong to Efes. The Serbian assets of the partners – majority shareholdings in local breweries - were transferred to the Central Europe Beverages authorized capital.

This year, Heineken acquired the Rodic brewery – Serbia’s fourth brewer with a 7% market share and annual production capacity of 1.5 mln hl. Efes, according to data as of the beginning of 2008, holds about 10% of the Serbian beer market. Its annual capacity in this country constitutes 1.4 mln hl.

As it was stated in their joint press release, Efes and Heineken have reached an agreement to create a joint venture in Kazakhstan. Efes is to receive a 72% stock, whereas the remaining 28% will go to Heineken. The creation of their Kazakh enterprise will be completed after the regulatory authorities approve the deal.

According to data as of the beginning of the year, Efes was the number two beer producer in Kazakhstan with ...More Info

Within the period July 2007 – June 2008, Germany exported 8.8 mln tonnes of grain, which is much lower than the 2006/2007 export rate of 12.4 mln tonnes, APK-Inform cited data provided by Germany’s Federal Statistics Office on August 26.

The amount of grain exported to the EU markets constituted 5.9 mln tonnes versus 8.1 mln tonnes in 2006/2007.

Barley exports fell to 1.8 mln tonnes in 2007/2008, whereas in 2006/2007 it made 2.7 mln tonnes.

Ukraine has completed its wheat, barley and rye harvesting campaign, Jury Melnik, the Minister of Agriculture, was quoted as saying by Agrimarket on August 28.

According to J.Melnik, barley was harvested throughout 4.17 mln ha (100% of planned territory). The crop totalled 13.4 mln tonnes with an average yield of 32.1 c/ha.

Besides, the Minister said Ukraine plans to export 22.6 mln tonnes of grain in 2008.

In August, Ukraine exported 1.5 mln tonnes of grain, bringing exports to 3.2 mln tonnes since the beginning of 2008/09 MY.

It was reported that in 2008, Ukrainian farmers will sow 8.8 mln ha of winter crops, including 0.7 mln ha of barley.

Hops harvest beginning this week in Yakima Valley gives new hope to growers, Yakima Herald-Republic communicated on August 27.

Tom Gasseling, the president of Leo Gasseling and Sons, says he has seen a crushing oversupply drive growers to idle acres or out of the business. Many who remained had to rob Peter to pay Paul to keep going.

However, acreage is up dramatically as Valley growers begin the general harvest this week for an industry for which production was valued at $128 million last year.

An oversupply of the beer-flavouring ingredient that evaporated because of weather problems and declining acreage caught the industry by surprise. The reaction became apparent in the high prices for uncontracted hops on the spot market that exceeded $20 per pound in some cases.

Average prices were $2.75 per pound last year, according to federal figures, that takes into account existing contracts at lower prices.

The runup has put pressure on craft brewers - a growing segment of the brewing industry - to obtain adequate supplies of hops. It has also pushed beer prices higher.

But at the local level, the sea change in the market couldn't have come at a better time for growers.

"This market has hit at a time that ...More Info

Ewa Sikorska, Jaroslaw Chmielewski, Tomasz Górecki, Igor Khmelinskii, Marek Sikorski and Denis De Keukeleire

Abstract

J. Inst. Brew. 113(1), 110–116, 2007 Entire mass spectra of beer headspace components were used as fingerprints for beer brand classification and differentiation of beer samples stored under various conditions. Chemometric analysis of the mass spectra allowed for the discrimination of beer brands and for the detection of beer aging and photodegradation. The numeric methods used include unsupervised PCA modelling and discrimination using kNN, LDA, and D-PLS methods. Load full article, 7 pages, 318 Kb, PDF file