Japan’s fourth-largest brewer Sapporo Holdings will enter Vietnamese market by taking a 65 percent stake in Kronenbourg Vietnam Ltd., a beer joint venture with Vietnam National Tobacco Corp, to tap its fast-growing market, Reuters reported on December, 10.

It marks the first major overseas expansion in three years by Sapporo, as bigger rivals Kirin and Suntory have been aggressively snapping up overseas businesses to grow beyond a shrinking domestic market.

"Vietnam is Asia's third-largest beer market after China and Japan and this is a fast-growing market," said Tatsuya Komatsu, a Sapporo spokesman.

The company will acquire a 50 percent stake in the venture from Danish brewer Carlsberg and 15 percent from Vietnam National Tobacco for a total of $25.4 million.

The joint venture will build a beer factory in Vietnam and is scheduled to start selling Sapporo brand beer in early 2012, it said in a statement.

The venture aims for sales in 2019 of 150,000 kilolitres or $128 million.

After the transaction, which will be completed as early as January, Kronenbourg Vietnam will change its name to Sapporo Vietnam Ltd.

Sapporo said it will actively seek further acquisition opportunities to enlarge its overseas business, which now accounts for less than 10 percent of its revenues.

Sapporo's exposure ...More Info

Private label beers are gaining share on their branded rivals in 2009 as the recessionary conditions have made them more appropriate to consumers across the region. A new report on private label beers in Europe from specialist beverage research agency Canadean suggests however that although share may be rising, volumes are not. Share is growing because private label products are falling at a slower rate than branded products, Canadean analysts claim.

2009 has been a traumatic year for the beer sector in West Europe, with Canadean anticipating a drop of around 3% in overall volumes. Private label beers are expected to drop at a more modest rate of less than 1%. Beer is well represented in the on-premise and it is the sharp decline in bars and restaurants that has pulled the overall beer sector down.

Private label beers are almost exclusively sold in supermarkets and have consequently been shielded from the full force of the downturn.

It is the level of beer volumes going through the on-premise that has contributed to the low level of private label penetration in the beer market; 7% penetration for beer compares to well over 20% for soft drinks. The size of many of the brewers in ...More Info

Hungary’s largest beer brewery by volume, Dreher Sorgyarak Zrt. is facing great challenges due to the effects of the financial crisis, The Wall Street Journal posted on December, 11.

To fight a plummeting consumption, the local arm of South African brewery giant SABMiller PLC plans to increase its market share, invest in renewable technologies and to boost its innovative side to drive sales.

The task isn’t easy: breweries in Hungary have been lobbying for years to gain equal rights to winemakers, who aren’t obliged to pay excise tax.

“It’s difficult to play on an uneven field,” Dreher Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Gary Whitlie said. “We’re increasing efficiency and decreasing expenses to maintain or even increase market share. However, there are two main areas where we would never cut costs are investment on our brands and on sustainable development.”

Although, some claim, drinking beer has a longer history in Hungary than drinking wine, Hungarians aren’t ranking high on the list of great beer consumers. For comparison, Czechs, the world’s biggest beer drinkers, consume roughly 160 liters of lager per person a year, while Hungarians drink only about 70 liters, which is decreasing each year.

Not as if the brewery was such a small factory in ...More Info

The Bulgarian beer market in 2009 has collapsed by 12% in comparison with consumption in 2008, Novinite reported on December, 10.

"If we consider only the last three months, the fall in different regions varies between 20% and 40%,"Alexander Grancharov, CEO of Carlsberg Bulgaria and board member of the Union of Brewers, announced at a recent press conference.

"To the reasons for this decline - loss of population, unemployment, a bad tourist season - we may add the influenza epidemic, because of which people have started to get together less," Grancharov said.

According to him, the negative trend will be maintained into next year, when a further decrease of 3% to 5% in beer consumption is expected.

"Market volume has returned to what it was five years ago, and at least three to four more years will be needed to restore the levels seen in 2008," said Alexander Grancharov.

Danish brewer Royal Unibrew A/S announced on December, 10 it had completed an offering of shares with preemptive rights to its existing shareholders.

In the rights issue, 5,586,498 new shares with a nominal value of DKK10 each were subscribed, corresponding to 99.8% of the offer shares.

The new shares were subscribed at DKK75 per share, resulting in gross proceeds to Royal Unibrew of approximately DKK419 million, equivalent to net proceeds of approximately DKK394 million after deduction of expenses related to the offering.

The new shares are expected to be admitted to trading and official listing on NASDAQ OMX Copenhagen A/S on 16 December 2009 under the same ISIN code as Royal Unibrew’s existing shares.

Following registration of the 5,586,498 new shares with a nominal value of DKK10 each, Royal Unibrew’s nominal share capital will be DKK111,864,980, corresponding to 11,186,498 shares with a nominal value of DKK10 each.

The new shares have the same rights as the company’s existing shares and are eligible for dividends in respect of each share amount of DKK10 nominal value. The new shares are eligible for any dividends payable in respect of the financial year 2009 and all dividends declared and payable thereafter.

As announced in the company’s interim statement for Q3 ...More Info

Japan’s Asahi Breweries reported its November 2009 sales on December, 11.

The company said its total beer sales decreased by 3.8 per cent to 167,391 kilolitres in November 2009 as compared to the same period in 2008.

The brewer’s domestic sales of ordinary beer fell by 8.5% to 114,778 kl. Sales of new genre (malt-based) beer soared by 46.1% (to 32,375 kl). Happoshu (low malt beer) saw a 23.4% decline in sales to 20,238 kl as compared to November 2008.

Asahi’s January – November 2009 total sales declined by 3.2% to 1,971,342 kl (as compared to 2,036,934 kl sold in the same period in 2008). A drop was registered in the sales of ordinary (- 6.8% to 1,333,714 kl) and Happoshu (low-malt) beer (- 12.5% to 291,588 kl). On the contrary, sales of new genre malt-based beer surged by 27.2% in the eleven months of this year to reach 346,039 kl.

As for Asahi’s sales by brand, the only positive results were achieved by Clear Asahi: + 10.4% in November, and + 38.4% in January – November 2009. Sales of Asahi Super Dry fell by 9.5% in November, and by 7.5% in the eleven months of this year. Sales of Style Free fell by ...More Info

Australia’s barley production is estimated to reach 8.3 million tonnes in 2009-10, 623,000 tonnes more than last season, ABARE communicated in its Australian Crop Report on December, 8.

In New South Wales, the area planted to barley is estimated to have increased by 4 per cent to around 1 million hectares in 2009-10. Below average rainfall during the growing season is forecast to result in an average yield of around 1.28 tonnes a hectare, well below the 10 year average of 1.46 tonnes a hectare. Reflecting the sharp reduction in yields, barley production in 2009-10 is estimated to fall by around 11 per cent, to 1.3 million tonnes.

The area planted to barley in Victoria is estimated to have fallen by around 13 per cent to 940,000 hectares in 2009-10. Production is estimated to be around 2.1 million tonnes compared with 1.4 million tonnes harvested last season.

Queensland’s barley production is estimated to have declined by 16 per cent to 130,000 tonnes in 2009-10, compared with 155,000 tonnes in 2008-09. The lack of in-crop rainfall reduced yields significantly, although the area was 20 per cent higher than last season.

Western Australia’s barley production is estimated to have declined by 22% to 2.2 mln tonnes, ...More Info

The member states adopted a revision of grain intervention rules, which will come into effect on July 1, 2010. These general rules on buying, selling, storage, quality specifications and supervision include barley, an analysts note said on December, 2.

Barley intervention is closed, but the general rules remain intact. It is not quite clear, how barley intervention could be reactivated, by the Management Committee, by the Ministers Council or by the European Parliament, which gained greater power under the Lisbon Treaty.

There would a small risk or chance of intervention, if another very large crop was harvested in 2010. That, however, is unlikely because of the forecast smaller barley acreage.

The Commission has put all barley intervention stocks of crop 2008, 924.986 tons up for “free distribution”.

It is foreseen that all member states, which hold barley intervention stocks, will open sales tenders, possibly starting next spring. Acceptance of bids will probably be in the hands of the EU Management Committees. The Commission has changed the procedure for the TRQ (quota) of 50,000 tons of malting barley. Any import licences will be handled by the DG TAXUD instead of the DG Agriculture. The quota refers to barley used for beer ...More Info

As attention goes to the barley harvests of the Southern Hemisphere, it is obvious by now that the crops of Australia and Mercosur will by no means be as good as earlier expected, analysts communicated earlier in December.

Reports from Australia are:

Western Australia experienced a fair, but apparently too dry growing season. Small grains and low protein, also local rain events caused down-grading of some quantities, which will nevertheless be sold in the malting sector. Altogether Western Australia seems to escape the poor harvest conditions, which have hit the south and east coast.

In Victoria and South Australia the early and late harvest areas have turned out best in the two states. Large areas have suffered from a bad heat wave in November, cutting into yields, causing thin barley and high protein. Just before the beginning of harvest the rains came and added sprouting to the range of problems.

Harvest is almost finished in New South Wales, dry conditions spoiled the malting quality. Only around 15% of the state crop are considered malting grade. The small crop of Queensland did not do better than that of NSW, it is reported.

Russian and Ukrainian wheat and barley exporters have dominated world markets since the beginning of the crop year, industry observers communicated earlier this month.

Their crops were not as large as in 2008, but still sufficient to make Russia the No. 2 wheat exporter and Ukraine the No. 1 barley exporter of the world.

At the recent Global Grain Conference at Geneva Russian exporters and farmers complained that barley market prices were well below the cost of production, but the Ukraine expects similar barley acreage in 2010 as in 2009.

Exports to-date are: Ukraine 3.44 mln tons by end November, 56% of its estimated surplus. Russia shipped 976,000 tons by end September and Kazakhstan 112,000 tons by end October.

Ukrainian analysts expect not only firmer barley markets, as stocks dwindle, but are even apprehensive of government intervention. That would open export chances for the EU, Australia and Canada, analysts believe.

Christian Pecher, Flottweg AG

Paper based on a lecture given at the ARFB study day,
Meurice, Brussels, October 12th 2007

ABSTRACT As a result of various waste disposal regulations coming into force, dumping or open ground tipping of organic waste with total organic carbon content (TOC) exceeding 5% will be prohibited. Therefore, industry has now to look for ways in which waste substances from breweries can be used efficiently. The present paper investigates the possibility of using the spent grain as source for thermal energy. Benefits of spent grain combustion are discussed, presenting cost savings, taking into account byproducts like ash used as fertilizer additive and biogas production from presswater. Side-effects on beer quality are also considered.
Cerevisia, 33 (1) 2008 http://www.cerevisia.eu