Despite EU’s 16-year-old promise to harmonize the structure for excise duties on alcoholic beverages, the variance in tax burdens on beer across the Union is still as large as life, Canadean analytic agency revealed in its latest report.

In its Council Directive 92/83/EEC, the European Union declared its intention to “harmonize the structure for excise duties on alcoholic beverages and alcohol contained in other products to ensure the establishment of the internal market,” analysts remind. Now, a report 'Beer Pricing in Europe - a taxing Question' exposes just how little progress has been made during this time and highlights the wide variance in tax burdens across the European Union.

Europe remains divided between the 'high taxation' markets of Scandinavia and the British Isles and the 'low taxation' countries of Central and Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean.

In Euros, the tax weight on a litre of mainstream beer (using the local standard beer abv %) varies from as low as €0.21 in Bulgaria to as high as €1.59 in Finland.

Experts maintain that such broad variances in the tax weight lead to wide differences in prices that encourage consumers and smugglers to cross borders to capitalise on cheaper prices.

In the member states affected by ...More Info

Moody’s Investors Service, the big credit-rating agency, adjusted its credit outlook on AmBev to reflect a somewhat rocky road ahead, St. Louis Today posted on November, 26.

The Brazilian top brewer is still solidly investment grade, but Moody’s moved its outlook to “stable” from “positive” to reflect ”likely increased pressure on margins” from challenging economics and competition in some of AmBev’s major markets.

Latin America’s biggest brewer, São Paulo-based AmBev has leading positions in Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay and Uruguay. It also has 43 percent of the market in Canada. Its business is now wrapped under the A-B InBev umbrella, so struggles or successes at AmBev could conceivably influence the fortunes of sister company Anheuser-Busch and its St. Louis operations, analysts maintain.

According to Moody’s, AmBev will probably have increased dividend payments and lower free cash flow in the near future. Meanwhile, tight credit is either significantly restricting access to funds or increasing the cost of financing for all issuers in the region, wrote senior analyst Soummo Mukherjee.

It’s fair to point out that AmBev has some of the highest operating profit margins in the beverage industry, which give the company plenty of predictable cash flow. For now, the company’s situation seems stable. Moody’s said ...More Info

Guinness Anchor Bhd, a leading Malaysian brewer, posted on November, 26 the results of its first quarter ended September, 30.

According to the company’s statement, its FY 2008 revenue constituted RM365.8 mln (+12.5%), profits amounted to RM63.3 mln.

GAB Chairman Tan Sri Saw Huat Lye said: “We have built upon our position as Malaysia’s clear market leader and further reinforced our reputation within our brand owners’ global network of breweries.”

GAB is number one in both the beer and the stout market in Malaysia. Brand building exercises throughout the year have enabled its brands like Tiger, Heineken and Anchor to all post double-digit growth and Guinness experienced a healthy single-digit growth.

Managing Director Charles Ireland said that the first quarter results augur well for a promising FY09 although challenges remain in the form of rising input cost for GAB’s products and a worsening general economic environment.

For instance, malt prices on the world spot market has gone up by 150 percent, while the price of hops on the same market has spiked to an unprecedented 800 percent. Packaging materials have also seen double digit cost increases.

On prospects for FY09, Charles commented, “We are confident that the full financial year ending June ...More Info

Japanese Kirin Brewery Co. announced it will import and sell Diageo’s Guinness and Kilkenny beers in Japan as from June, 1, Reuters posted on November, 26.

The transfer of rights ends the 44-year sales contract between Kirin’s rival Sapporo Holdings Ltd. and the British brewer.

While Kirin declined to discuss details about its contract with Diageo, Sapporo said it will end its import and sales contract with the British company at the end of May.

Sapporo has sold the three beverages through its joint venture with Diageo. In 2007, their 50-50 venture sold 530,000 cases of Guinness beers. Each case contains 20 633-milliliter bottles.

Sapporo will continue to support sales of Diageo products until its contract expires in May, and will use the change as an opportunity to develop new products, said spokesman Katsuhito Ogawa.

Sapporo first began selling Guinness in Japan in 1964, according to Ogawa.

Ursus Breweries, SABMiller’s Romanian subsidiary, announced its sales volume grew 24% in the first half of the current financial year (April – September), Financiarul posted on November, 27.

This increase represents a four-fold higher pace as against the domestic market and is twice as much from the European one, the brewer reported.

“On a market with a pronounced slowed down growth pace, we concluded the first half of the year with a four-fold higher growth than the market’s”, announced Ursus Breweries CEO Stephan Maria Weber.

According to the company’s statement which quotes studies conducted by MEMRB research firm, Ursus Breweries held a share of 26.3% of the Romanian beer market as of end of September.

According to the company representatives, all brands in Ursus Breweries portfolio recorded remarkable performances in the first six months of the current financial year. As such, Timisoreana continued to enjoy the highest growth pace in volume on the mainstream segment (31%), consolidating its leading position on the beer market.

At company level, the biggest advance was recorded by Peroni brand, with twice as much sales and an expanded distribution. As well, Ciucas showed the highest growth on the economy segment (19%) and the new Stejar Pilsner also surged by ...More Info

MillerCoors has begun implementing an 18-month network optimization project, Ag Weekly cited a company spokesperson on November, 26.

Aimee Valdez, a spokesperson for MillerCoors, said the project aims at shifting volume and brewing both Miller and Coors products throughout the expanded network of eight major breweries.

These moves will reduce shipping distances and deliver products to market quicker.

The company reported work had just been completed on the Irwindale, Calif., brewery, which allows Coors Light to be produced on both the East and West coasts.

Reduced transportation costs and increased efficiency were among the reasons given by MolsonCoors Brewing Co. and SABMiller PLC when their merger was announced in July this year.

Russia’s major brewer Baltika has started shipping its beers to Uruguay and is planning to enter other markets of Latin America, RIA Novosty cited the company’s press release on November, 27.

“Starting shipments to Uruguay is an important step in the development of our business in Latin America. This will allow us to enter the other markets of Mercosur, including those of Brazil and Argentina,” Dmitry Kistev, Baltika’s Export Sales Director, is quoted as saying.

At the first stage, Baltika beers will be sold in the major distribution networks of the capital Montevideo. Later the brewer’s products will be available through big wholesale companies across the nation.

Baltika’s main competitors in Uruguay are the beers exported from Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, and Germany.

Talks are continuing about the possibility of an AU$2.3 billion merger of Australia's two largest grain companies – ABB and AWB, Farm Online reported on November, 27.

According to sources close to the situation, ABB's managing director Michael Iwaniw and AWB's managing director Gordon Davis have openly said that they would be keen to pursue the idea.

However, on November, 28, AWB said in a statement that the talks are continuing and may not lead to an agreement.

With both companies posting significant profits this year – ABB announced a full-year net profit of AU$48.8 million on Nov. 25 and AWB posted an AU$64.3 mln profit last week – it would create a company with the lion's share of market capitalisation in the Australian grain market.

Experts say that with the first year of a completely deregulated grain market causing angst for a number of growers, there is probably an attraction for many in dealing with a company that combines Australia's previous single desk marketers for wheat and barley.

Mr Iwaniw said any merger or acquisition would have to benefit shareholders.

“Australian agricultural companies need to consolidate to gain further geographic diversity,” ABN Amro Morgans Ltd. analyst Belinda Moore said in a report to clients. “It ...More Info

Barley prices dropped on November, 28 due to the stagnant market situation in the spot market followed by lower buying by the poultry industries along with lower export demand, Commodity Online reported on the same day.

According to experts, the bearish sentiment in spot market was also maintained by a sturdy sowing progress of barley crop during the current rabi season.

Most of the malting companies were sidelined from last one month as most of the companies are sitting with hefty inventories, India’s traders report.

In Rajasthan’s biggest markets, the daily arrivals of barley are at around 2000-3000 bags with the price range of Rs 1080-1100 per quintal (exclusive of all taxes), it is reported.

Chris D. Powell and Andrew N. Diacetis

Abstract

ABSTRACT J. Inst. Brew. 113(1), 67–74, 2007 Two brewing yeast strains, one employed for the production of an ale type product and the other used solely for bottle conditioning, were serially repitched over a period of one year. Subsequently each yeast culture was compared to the original stocks for a variety of phenotypic and genotypic characteristics. Fermentation performance was assessed in terms of flocculation capacity and the time required to achieve attenuation in 150 barrel fermentation vessels, while the propensity for the population to accumulate variants was assessed by analysing giant colony morphology. Changes to the genome were monitored by DNA fingerprinting of each yeast culture using RAPD-PCR and RFLP. Although some colony morphology variation was observed between fresh and old ale yeast cultures, there were no detectable genetic changes or alterations in fermentation characteristics to either yeast strain over the course of serial repitching. It is suggested that although some brewing yeast strains are susceptible to genetic drift, others are more resilient and can remain stable over extended periods of time. The propensity to produce variants may therefore play a significant role in determining the number of times a strain may be serially repitched, or its suitability for beer fermentations. Key words: cropping, flocculation, genetic drift, RAPD, RFLP, Saccharomyces. Load full article, 5 pages, 5952Kb, PDF file