Asahi Breweries Ltd. is planning to strengthen its tie-up with major Chinese beer maker Tsingtao Brewery Co. in a bid to boost sales in Asia, Jiji Press cited President Hitoshi Ogita on October, 22.

Asahi cannot survive escalating competition in China by itself and Tsingtao Brewery is the best partner in the country, Ogita said.

Specifically, the CEO noted, Asahi will boost beer production capacity at its joint venture with the Chinese firm, raising its annual total for 2010 by some 50 pct to 330,000 kiloliters from an estimated 210,000 kiloliters for 2008.

Asahi, which has so far spent 2.23 million yen to boost capacity at the joint venture, Shenzhen Tsingtaobeer Asahi Co. Ogita described the joint venture as a supply base in Asia.

Established in 1997 by Asahi, trading house Itochu Corp. and Tsingtao Brewery, the joint venture makes Asahi's flagship Super Dry beer and Tsingtao Beer for sales in China, Cambodia, South Korea and India.

Asahi also hopes to bolster its ties with Tsingtao Brewery in the fields of marketing strategy and quality assurance, Ogita said.

His comments come at a time when Asahi is interested in acquiring an equity stake in Saigon Alcohol Beverage Corp., a major Vietnamese brewer, as part of its ...More Info

Carlsberg’s French subsidiary Brasseries Kronenbourg has announced a turnaround plan for the company built on a new brand strategy and a commercial strengthening, European Investor published on October, 23.

The objective is to make the company dedicated to satisfy the needs of customers and consumers and thereby improve the market share and the profitability. Besides, the plan includes re-launch of the main brands Kronenbourg and 1664, the company reported.

The plan is expected to result in a complete reorganisation of the company. All locations, all functions and all levels are in scope. All processes will be reviewed, as well as all the organisational charts and all job functions. The outcome will be a clearer, simpler and more efficient organisation. By the end of 2010 this reorganisation should impact 214 out of 1400 employees.

The French beer market has been declining for many years and not least the last two years. The decline is due to strong legislation which is getting more and more restrictive and to a general economic slowdown. Even as market leader Brasseries Kronenbourg is losing market share.

“Our strategic plan will help us increase the sales, win back market shares, stay competitive and restore the profitability. From 2009 ...More Info

Profits of Suntory's beer division will surpass 1 billion yen in the year ending this December and take the company's beer business into the black for the first time since its start in 1963, Suntory President Nobutada Saji was quoted as saying by Mainichi News on October, 22.

In addition to its aggressive price strategy, the company's "The Premium Malt's" brand has also proved highly popular with consumers, Saji said.

While rising ingredient costs are expected to increase production costs by 4 billion yen, a 10 percent cut in promotional spending, and improved sales will make up for the rising costs, he added.

The CEO announced that the company was planning to acquire at least three companies whose turnover is around 70 billion yen each in the food and drink industry based mainly in Asia.

He also downplayed the prospects of a future price hike in soft drinks.

"We planned to raise the price (of all our vending machine drinks) by 10 yen next spring, but given the economic conditions, we're carefully re-examining the idea," he said.

Carlsberg’s South Asia Breweries is expecting its new Singur brewery to be ready next year, India’s Express News Service reported on October, 22.

The Danish company has reportedly invested nearly Rs 70-80 crore in the manufacturing unit.

“Our West Bengal unit will be ready in about six months,” said Pradeep Gidwani, managing director of Carlsberg and South Asia Breweries.

The Singur brewery is a joint venture of South Asia Breweries and Sri Lanka’s Lion Brewery Ceylon Ltd.

“We aim to create a new brand of super-premium beer in India. Carlsberg will mainly focus on its target consumers — urban Indian males, aged 25-35 years,” Gidwani said.

He added that the beer industry has become extremely competitive in India and they hope to acquire 10 per cent of the market share for mild beer in the country in the next one year.

”India has been one of our strategic investment locations across the world. And once we identify some country as a strategic investment destination, we certainly have long-term plans,” Gidwani said.

The company already has three breweries in India - in Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Himachal Pradesh.

“Once all our four breweries in India are up and running and once we successfully ramp up capacities ...More Info

The Mexican brewing industry is to get ready for a shake-up following the takeover of Anheuser-Busch by InBev, Research and Markets experts claimed in a report on October, 21.

As Anheuser-Busch owns a 50% stake of Mexico's largest brewery, Grupo Modelo, this acquisition will surely have consequences for the dynamic but highly competitive Mexican market. Offering high per capita beer consumption and strong growth, Mexico is an attractive market for the world's major brewers but so far the market has remained largely under the control of two domestic firms: Grupo Modelo and Femsa Cerveza.

However, the arrival of InBev could upset this balance and lead to a period of consolidation, experts state.

Set to be the world's largest brewer, the newly formed Anheuser-Busch InBev will be looking to maximise the return from its Mexican assets. Relations between Anheuser-Busch and Grupo Modelo had been decidedly frosty but the arrival of InBev, with its wealth of experience operating in Latin America, is likely to present a number of opportunities that Grupo Modelo should be keen to exploit.

According to experts, these opportunities are likely to include the expansion of Grupo Modelo's brands in other Latin American markets such as Brazil, and the arrival of InBev's ...More Info

Czech beer has been given officially protected status as of Oct. 14, when it was added to the European Commission’s Index of Protected Designations of Origin, the Prague Post published on October, 22.

The Czech Industrial Property Office filed an application to Brussels four years ago, shortly after the Czech Republic entered the EU. “No objections against the name ‘Czech Beer’ as a protected geographical indication were made,” said Agriculture Minister Petr Gandalovič.

Any brew labelled “Czech Beer” must now follow certain traditional brewing criteria and be made in the Czech Republic. The recipe must use precise ingredients, and the final product must have a certain quality of colour, taste and foam, as well as an alcohol content of 2.6–6 percent.

“The concept of Czech beer was always used, but nobody ever knew where the definition started and where it ended. This way, we’ve defined something that is ours,” said Jan Veselý, director of the Czech Beer and Malt Association.

The Czech beer market has 48 large industrial breweries and 73 smaller breweries which together produce nearly 400 brands, many boasting long and storied traditions.

“The protected designation might not mean so much for large, well known breweries such as Budweiser and Prazdroj, which are ...More Info

Heineken International announced on October, 22 the official opening of its newest brewery in Seville, by His Majesty, King Don Juan Carlos I of Spain.

The brewery, nicknamed “Jumbo”, because of its scale and size, is the most modern and technologically advanced in Europe, the Dutch brewer said.

Commenting on the opening, Didier Debrosse, Regional President Western Europe of Heineken N.V. said: “This new brewery demonstrates our ongoing commitment to the Spanish brewing industry and our intention to maintain our market leadership."

Carlos de Jaureguízar, Managing Director of Heineken España, said: “Today marks a significant step forwards for Heineken’s business in Spain. The Seville brewery will now have increased annual production capacity of 5 million hectolitres and state of the art technology will also significantly enhance our environmental credentials.”

As reported by Heineken, investment in the project totalled EUR 260 million.

Heineken Spain owns five breweries in Madrid, Valencia, Seville, Jáen and Arano (Navarra) and brews the Heineken, Amstel, Cruzcampo (Spain’s best selling beer brand), Buckler and Kaliber brands. In 2007, consolidated beer volume of Heineken España totalled 11.4 million hectolitres.

Germany’s beer and malt industries are to reap the abundant fruits of the country’s large barley crop this year, Reuters cited the head of Germany’s malt producers association on October, 23.

In 2007, the nation’s grain harvest was sharply cut by bad weather, and brewers faced tight and expensive supplies of malt. But this year’s malting barley crop is much larger and prices are falling, Michael Lerch, chief executive of the Association of German Malt Producers, said.

According to the association’s estimates, this year’s German harvest of malting barley is 1,555,000 tonnes, up from 1,138,000 tonnes in 2007.

Malting barley prices are now around 180 euros a tonne against 280 euros a tonne offered before the harvest and peaks of 300 euros a tonne earlier in the year, it is reported.

"The malt market is now returning to normal levels after the tightness following the poor crop in 2007," he said. "Overall we are satisfied with the harvest and the picture is looking considerably better than this time last year."

Experts said German malting barley imports were likely to be reduced to a normal level of about 500,000 to 600,000 tonnes.

Last season the import requirement was several hundred thousand tonnes higher but poor harvests in ...More Info

According to estimates of the economic Research Service of the US Department of Agriculture, world barley production projected for 2008/09 increased 3.5 million tonnes this month to 153.4 million tonnes, All about Feed published on October, 22.

EU-27 barley is forecast up 1.6 million tonnes to 64.4 million, the highest level in 11 years, experts said.

The largest increases are for Spain, Sweden, and France, all reporting increased yields, with Sweden also revising area up.

Russia harvested 23.7 mln tonnes of barley from 93% of the area planted with this grain as of October, 13.

US barley production is raised 0.5 million tonnes to 5.2 million. Canada and Belarus also reported increased barley production.

Revised estimates from the NFU confirm that this year’s barley harvest was a big one in the UK, despite the difficult conditions, Farmers Guardian communicated on October, 22.

UK spring barley production is estimated to be up by 27 per cent to 3.481 million tonnes, partly as a result of a 7.4 per cent increase in yields on 2007, but mainly due to an 18.3 per cent rise in plantings, experts reported.

Average winter barley yield was up by an estimated 10.5 per cent. Total UK production was up 21.5 per cent to 2.841 million tonnes.

“In the coming months we will view data on any change on planted area for the 2009 harvest with great interest,” said Ian Backhouse, chairman of the NFU combinable crops board.

“We believe farmers’ decisions are more likely to reflect the return to the difficult economic conditions of 2005, with increasing energy costs and particularly the rising price of fertiliser.”

An accurate picture of the harvest in Scotland is not yet available, experts reported.

Robert Muller, Sam Walker, John Brauer1 and Maria Junquera

Abstract

J. Inst. Brew. 113(1), 102–109, 2007 Elevated blood cholesterol is a problem for many people. Although a significant proportion of this cholesterol arises from metabolism within the body, approximately 50% comes from our diet. Certain plant sterols (phytosterols) are known to inhibit the absorption of this dietary cholesterol by the human body, and there are now several commercially available food products that contain these phytosterols. Barley malt, yeast and hops also contain phytosterols or similar materials that might potentially act as inhibitors of cholesterol uptake but this effect has not been studied. In this work we examine one aspect of the potential for competition between cholesterol and selected beer components when binding to a protein. The method used was ligand docking. This uses computer modeling to examine the binding energies expected when the ligand (e.g. cholesterol or analogue) binds to a protein. The two proteins examined were both natural cholesterol binding proteins. The cholesterol analogues, sitosterol (from barley) and ergosterol (from yeast), had similar binding energies to cholesterol and thus had potential for competition. Other molecules (iso-xanthohumol, 8-prenylnaringenin (8PN) and iso-humulone) had lower binding energies suggesting that they would not compete effectively. Standard beers normally contain very low levels of either sitosterol or ergosterol, although some wheat beers that contain high levels of yeast may contain elevated levels of ergosterol. We have also developed a beer that contains elevated levels of sitosterol by incorporating whole grain material. The level of -sitosterol in these beers was still very low and even a whole grain beer would not contain sufficient of the cholesterol analogues to completely inhibit cholesterol uptake or transport. Key words: Binding energy cholesterol, ergosterol, protein, sitosterol. Load full article, 8 pages, 5540 Kb, PDF file