China Resources Snow Breweries Limited (or “CR Snow”), a subsidiary of China Resources Enterprise, Limited and a joint venture with SABMiller plc, announced on March, 13 that it has agreed to acquire the brewing assets of Shandong Hupo Brewery (or “Hupo Brewery”) through the formation of a joint venture in which it will initially own a 90% equity interest.

The joint venture partner has undertaken to dispose of its 10% equity interest in the joint venture to CR Snow within three years after the joint venture is formed. The total cash consideration for the acquisitions amounts to about RMB285 million, China’s largest brewer said.

Hupo Brewery is situated in Zouping county, northern Shandong Province. Hupo Brewery has an annual production capacity of 270,000 kiloliters and upon completion of the acquisition, approximately RMB54 million will be spent on technology upgrades to the existing facilities in order to align with the production requirements for Snow beer and to increase its capacity to 300,000 kiloliters. Its sales volume amounted to approximately 55,000 kiloliters in 2007. Although CR Snow does not have any plant in Shandong Province, about 80,000 kiloliters of Snow beer was sold there last year.

The acquisition will enable CR Snow to establish ...More Info

SABMiller PLC's South African division is planning to make ZAR350 million ($33 million) worth of cost savings in 2010, Dow Jones communicated on March, 11.

According to the unit’s managing director Norman Adami, the brewer is seeking to increase investment behind its brands in the face of worsening economic pressures and increased competition.

Mr Adami said that the cost savings would be generated through productivity savings and increased efficiencies. No job losses or plant closures are planned.

An extra ZAR364 million will be invested in the unit's business as it faces increased competition from a joint venture between Diageo PLC and Heineken NV.

Extra marketing investment will account for ZAR284 million of the above mentioned sum, according to the managing director. "Our intention is to make sure we are more than sufficiently investing in the brands," Adami said.

Adami described the efficiency targets as pretty aggressive. "These are world class performance levels," he said, adding, "we have set our sights high."

Adami said the investment was partly a response to the emergence of Brandhouse as a stronger competition.

SABMiller lost its deal to brew and sell Heineken's Amstel brand in South Africa in 2007. The brand had accounted for 9% of the unit's ...More Info

Belgium-based world's largest brewer AB InBev has opened a new factory in Foshan, Guangdong province, the China Daily reported on March, 13.

Constructed at a cost of CNY600 million, the new factory is expected to help the company further expand in southern China.

The factory, Budweiser (Foshan) Brewing, has the capacity to produce 260,000 tons of beer annually under the brands Budweiser and Harbin. This capacity will be enhanced moving forward.

YR Cheng, president of Anheuser-Busch InBev China, said: "Our mission is to become the most profitable and efficient brewer in China. The opening of Foshan Brewery will further consolidate the leading market position of Anheuser-Busch InBev in China, especially its market share in south China."

Kirin Holdings Co. may launch a bid for San Miguel Corp.’s Asian beer production and sales operations from the later half of this year, after its ¥127-billion acquisition of a 49% stake in San Miguel Breweries is completed in May, Dow Jones reported on March, 11.

"It’s not easy to find the right partner to expand our business in Southeast Asia, so we really value the opportunity to discuss further investments in San Miguel," Kirin’s chief executive Kazuyasu Kato shared.

Formal negotiations have yet to commence as Kirin is focusing on completing its acquisition of San Miguel Breweries.

"After we finalize our transaction in San Miguel Breweries, a possible investment in San Miguel International will be our next step," said Kato.

To boost its presence in the Asia and Oceania market, Japan’s second largest brewer by market share has its eyes on San Miguel Corp.’s unlisted overseas beer business unit, San Miguel International, which is comprised of six breweries across Hong Kong, China, Indonesia, Vietnam and Thailand.

In addition to San Miguel brands, San Miguel International also markets local labels such as "Anchor" in Indonesia and "Dragon Beer" in China.

San Miguel’s international beer operations’ revenue for the nine months ended September 2008 was $213 million, ...More Info

The East European market continues to be a disappointment to Carlsberg. In 2008 the Polish market experienced a decline both in volume and market share for the subsidiary Carlsberg Polska, news2biz posted on March, 4.

“Last year was not easy for the Polish beer industry. We had to overcome price increases for raw materials and packaging. The consequent increase of the retail prices, combined with a weakened economic climate, had a negative effect on the beer consumption in Poland,” Piotr Majchrzak, Carlsberg Polska CFO, said.

Carlsberg Polska had a volume decline of 5 per cent compared to the SABMiller unit Kompania Piwowarska’s sales increase of 6.2 per cent while the Heineken owned Grupa Zywiec had a sales growth of 3.5 per cent.

The Carlsberg subsidiary’s market share fell by 1 percentage point to 13.6 per cent, while its two rivals increased their market share by 41.1 per cent and 33.8 per cent respectively.

The Polish beer market grew totally 1.7 per cent in volume – far below the previous years’ growth in the range of 8 per cent.

This seems to indicate that the market is getting saturated as the Poles already account for one of Europe’s largest beer consumption ...More Info

ONIGC posted the International Grain Council’s estimates of the 2008/2009 crop year on March, 11.

Total world barley production is estimated at more than 156 mln tonnes in 2008/2009 (+ 17% on 2007).

EU - 27 barley production is estimated at 66 mln tonnes (+ 8.5 mln tonnes compared to 2007).

Ex-USSR nations are expected to produce 41 mln tonnes of barley in the current season (+ 14 mln tonnes on 2007), of which 23 mln tonnes will be harvested in Russia and 13 mln tonnes will be produced in Ukraine, ONIGC said citing IGC data.

Canada’s barley production if forecast to constitute 12 mln tonnes (+ 1 mln tonnes compared to 2007).

Australia is expected to produce 7 mln tonnes of barley in 2008/2009, 1 mln tonnes more than in the previous season.

World’s barley consumption is forecast to amount to 148 mln tonnes (+ 10 mln tonnes compared to 2007/2008). Feed use is expected to be 102 mln tonnes (+ 10 mln tonnes compared to the previous crop year): industrial use (use by the brewing industry in particular) is to exceed 28 mln tonnes, according to ONIGC/IGC data.

World barley trade is to increase by 26% from 2007/2008 to 19.5 mln tonnes this season. Barley ...More Info

Low export demand, good crops in 2008, and little barley movement in the country has provided for little movement in barley prices, The Farm & Ranch Guide reported on March, 12.

Despite this lackluster price performance in recent weeks, the current prices are high enough that barley growers are generally optimistic about including barley in their farm cropping plans for 2009, according to Steve Edwardson, executive administrator of the North Dakota Barley Council.

“Sales to Japan thus far in 2009 have been sluggish, largely due to Australia regaining market share in Japan,” Edwardson said. “However, Japan continues to look at the U.S. as a reliable feed barley supplier.”

In addition, a better malting barley crop in the Land Down Under is also having an impact on the malting barley situation in the rest of the world, according to Bruce Burnett, the Canadian Wheat Board's director of weather and marketing analysis. He recently said that the number of barley acres planted in Canada will likely drop off because of the improved Australian crop that's being harvested.

Buyers of malting barley in the U.S. contracted a significant portion of their production needs in 2008 and Edwardson expects that trend will continue in 2009.

“Currently contract prices for ...More Info

The quotations of feed barley have changed very slightly this week on a completely deserted market, La Depeche posted on March, 13.

The demand is at its lowest and it is absolutely impossible to keep prices. The producers of animal feed seem to be fully covered.

The situation on the EU’s malting barley market has not changed at all this week. With an absolute lack of transactions, the prices have preserved their downward trend.

Pirkko Forssell, Hanna Kontkanen, Henk A. Schols, Sandra Hinz, Vincent G.H. Eijsink, Janneke Treimo, Jim A. Robertson, Keith W. Waldron, Craig B. Faulds and Johanna Buchert

Abstract:
J. Inst. Brew. 114(4), 306–314, 2008 In this work four commercial cellulase-hemicellulase mixtures with different activity profiles were used for solubilization of carbohydrates from brewers’ spent grain (BSG). After the enzyme treatment, both the solubilised fraction and the unhydrolysed residue were characterized. Treatment with 5,000 nkat/g xylanase for 5 h at 50°C resulted in the solubilisation of 13–14% of the BSG dry weight as monosaccharides. This corresponded to the solubilisation of 26–28% of the original carbohydrates and 30–34% of original arabinoxylans, depending on the enzyme cocktail used. The relatively low hydrolysis level indicates that the majority of the BSG biomass is rather recalcitrant towards the cellulose-hemicellulase enzyme mixtures applied in this study. The enzyme activity profile had a crucial impact on the chemistry of the oligosaccharides produced through the solubilisation of BSG. The presence of feruloyl esterase (FAE) activity in the enzyme cocktail resulted in the production of free ferulic acid, arabinoxylo-oligosaccharides and their corresponding monomers. However, when the enzyme mixture was devoid of FAE activity, ferulic acid was still bound to the oligosaccharides. The unhydrolysed fraction was still found to contain over 40% of carbohydrates after enzymatic treatment despite the extensive enzyme dosages used. The protein fraction remained largely unaffected (i.e. insoluble) by the carbohydrate-disrupting enzyme treatments. In addition to the recalcitrant carbohydrates, the residue was enriched with lignin and lipid type structures. Key words: brewers’ spent grain, cellulase, hydrolysis, xylanase. Load full article, 9 pages, 4748 Kb, PDF file