World’s second-largest brewer SABMiller plc said on January, 19 on an organic basis its lager volumes for the third quarter were level with the prior year, and 1% below last year for the first nine months of the financial year.

Consumer demand during the quarter varied across markets, with some showing tentative signs of recovery, whilst in others demand remained subdued, the brewing giant said in its interim management statement for the group's third quarter ended 31 December 2009 which also represents a trading update for the same period.

The financial performance of the group in the quarter was in line with our expectations, SABMiller said.

In Latin America, lager volumes grew by 4% in the quarter. Lager volumes in Colombia grew 6% benefiting from good weather, an increase in consumer disposable income and strong operational execution. The quarter also benefited from a soft October in the prior year which was impacted by a price increase. In Peru, lager volumes were up 1%, notwithstanding growth of 14% in the same quarter last year, with strong sales execution driving further market share gains. Good growth continued in Ecuador with lager volumes up 9% reflecting the success of sales ...More Info

Ukraine’s beer market shrank by 7.4% to 26.53 mln hl last year, Ukrpivo, the association of Ukrainian brewers, soft drinks and malt producers, communicated on January, 16.

The nation’s beer production dropped to 30.1 mln hl in 2009 (minus 6.2% as compared to 2008). Beer exports declined by 2.9% to 3.42 mln hl, whereas imports fell by 16.2% to 0.16 mln hl.

Reduced circumstances of the consumers and pressure on the part of regulating authorities are cited as the main reasons for the decline.

Besides, an average Ukrainian drunk just 58 litres of beer in 2009, whereas in 2008 the nation’s per capita beer consumption was 65 litres, a Ukrpivo representative said.

Anheuser-Busch InBev, the world's largest beermaker, said its production in Belgium had come to a complete halt after nearly two weeks of blockades over job cuts at its breweries, Reuters reported on January, 20.

Belgian workers have blocked the entrances to the company's large plants in Leuven and Liege for 13 days and for a week at Hoegaarden in protest at AB InBev's plan to shed a net 263 of its 2,700 Belgian workforce.

Two mediation attempts have failed to break the deadlock.

The company's Belgian unit, InBev Belgium, said in a statement that it was unable to bring in raw materials, empty bottles and crates and other packaging and that its on-site storage facilities were completely full.

It said it had had to make its brewery workers temporarily unemployed.

InBev Belgium plans to engage in a third round of mediation talks on January, 20.

It says it has frozen its restructuring plan and that up to 150 early retirement plans and 70 new positions would considerably lessen the impact of job cuts.

Unions have insisted the company withdraw its restructuring plan, and union officials said a deal had appeared close, but that the company had ultimately not met this key demand.

Supermarket chains Delhaize and Carrefour said ...More Info

The recent acquisition deal between Heineken and FEMSA has triggered a new wave of speculations on a possible deal between SABMiller and the African beer operations of French drinks group Castel, Business Report communicated on January, 18.

Julian Wentzel, the head of research at Macquarie First South, points out that the "universe of large deals is shrinking" and there are now only a few transactions that may be attractive for SABMiller.

"A deal with Carlsberg is complicated by its Russian interests and its control structure; there are no compelling reasons for SABMiller to do a deal with Foster's. The most attractive deal for SABMiller right now would be to acquire the 80 percent of Castel's African business that it does not own," says Wentzel.

He acknowledges that the Castel Group, which is managed and controlled by the Castel family, is under no pressure to do a deal with SABMiller. But he notes that the dynamics in the constantly consolidating global beer industry may change this.

In early 2001 SABMiller's African operation, SAB, acquired a 20 percent stake in the beer division of the Castel Group and at the same time the Castel Group acquired a 38 percent stake in SABI Africa, a subsidiary of ...More Info

Belgian brewing giant Anheuser-Busch InBev has terminated a license agreement with Dutch brewing giant Heineken to use its Bud trademark in Russia, RBC-Daily reported on January, 19.

Heineken had high hopes for the well-known brand, hoping to use it to strengthen its positions in the Russian market. However, the brand failed to enter even the top hundred of the most popular beer brands in the country.

Anheuser-Busch granted a license to Heineken to produce Bud beer in St. Petersburg in 2006. At that time Heineken also acquired the rights to distribute Bud in Russia, mainly in bars and restaurants of Moscow and St. Petersburg.

An official representative of Anheuser-Busch InBev Russia Ilya Lysenko has confirmed the termination of the agreement, but declined to talk about the future plans of Bud in Russia.

Meanwhile, according to local analysts, the termination of the agreement will have no impact on Heineken's positions in Russia, as the value of the Bud’s market share currently amounts to less than 0.1%.

They also believe that the weak position of the brand is closely related to its late expansion of Russia. In addition, Bud brand is practically unknown outside of Moscow and St. Petersburg.

Czech brewery Pivovar Svijany plans to raise beer output by 4 percent on the year to more than 400,000 hectolitres this year, the brewer's head Roman Havlik was quoted as saying by CTK on January, 20.

The amount beats the record-high output from last year when Pivovar Svijany supplied 385,340 hectolitres of beer to the market, a year-on-year growth of 21 percent. The company raises its output every year.

Pivovar Svijany ranks among the ten largest breweries in the Czech Republic. It supplies most of its production to the domestic market.

The brewer's majority owner is company LIF Trade which holds 55 percent of its shares. A minority stake is owned by K Brewery Group.

Pivovar Svijany made a profit of Kc42.5 mln on sales of Kc289.789 mln in 2008. Results for last year are not available yet, but a further significant growth in sales can be expected given the rise in output.

The company regularly invests its profits into further development. In the past 13 years of the firm's existence as a private company, it spent around Kc400 mln on the development of its premises and technologies.

This year, Pivovar Svijany plans to invest Kc80 mln, Havlik said.

France’s barley production in 2009/2010 is expected to exceed 13 mln tonnes, FranceAgriMer communicated on January, 13.

About 12.3 mln tonnes are forecast to be available for the market, including the stock at the beginning of the campaign (estimated at 1.6 mln tonnes) and 40 thousand tonnes of barley to be imported in 2009/10.

France’s domestic barley consumption is expected to reach 2.6 mln tonnes, of which 1.6 mln tonnes should be used for feed.

Barley sales to other EU nations are expected to total 3.9 mln tonnes in 2009/10. About 0.6 mln tonnes will be exported to third countries, FranceAgriMer said.

France’s final barley stocks are forecast to amount to 3.9 mln tonnes.

As at the beginning of this month, more than 450 thousand tonnes of barley have been offered into intervention in France.

In 2010, French farmers are expected to plant to barley 1.25 mln ha, down 5% as compared to 2009.

US feed barley continues to see support from the market place but malting barley is bogged down, Farm & Ranch Guide communicated on January, 16.

Support for feed barley has translated into considerable price improvement from harvest time lows. Meanwhile, the malting barley pipeline remains clogged with no expectation in the foreseeable future for market improvement. In fact, the situation continues where very few elevators are even offering a cash bid for malting barley since there is simply no market at this time.

“The feed barley market has been fairly strong,” said Lance Kalmbach with the SunPrairie Grain elevator in Bowbells, North Dakota. “We've seen some feed barley going out to dairies in California. We had some stronger bids at the end of December because there were nearby bids that needed to get filled. Plus, when the corn and bean prices started to run up they basically brought the feed barley with it.”

Presently Kalmbach estimates the average cash price for feed barley is in the $2.30 to $2.40 range and he expects the price to stay in that range for at least a while. However, he noted that we could see some weakness if those farmers who didn't have malting barley contracts ...More Info

Tomáš Horák, Jiří Čulík, Vladimír Kellner, Marie Jurková and Pavel Čejka

J. Inst. Brew. 115(3), 214–219, 2009 ABSTRACT
Dominant trends in analytical chemistry include miniaturization in sample preparation techniques and faster run times to provide high-throughput screening, fast process monitoring and fast method development. This study focused on the application of narrow bore gas chromatographic capillary columns, 0.18 mm internal diameter, for brewing analyses. On these capillary columns, faster analyses could be performed compared to conventional GC capillary columns using 0.32 to 0.53 mm internal diameters. The robustness of the state-of-the-art faster capillary gas chromatography, without compromising resolution, has been demonstrated with the analyses of beer flavour compounds such as lower and higher alcohols, esters and other volatile compounds such as acetaldehyde and dimethyl sulphide in beer. These methods were able to reduce sample run times by 60%. Key words: analytics, beer, beer flavours, brewing, faster gas chromatography.
Load full article, 6 pages, 905kb , PDF file