1. Trading offer & request

At this moment there is one OFFER for 5000 tons of malt on the trading portal www.e-malt.com

• Offer for 1-5000 mtons of malt, 2RS Scarlet/Aspen, crop 2003, bulk, delivery 1/1/2004 - 31/12/2004, at EUR 281.00 /mton, FOB Antwerp. (to see and make a bid to the malt offer, please click here to view code MF2105P0825)
  
  

 Top Industry News 

• Import and Export of beer in Denmark Click here
  
  
• In March 2003 Ukraine imported 1555.4 thousand litres of beer (US$0.41 million), by 118.9% or with 844.98 thousand litres more than in February 2003 ... Click here
  
  
• Swedish brewer Kopparbergs’ beer brand Sofiero Original has rocketed to the top of the list of best-selling Swedish beers ... Click here
  
  
• USA: The Montana Department of Environmental Quality has recently issued an air quality permit to International Malting Co. ... Click here
  
  
• This year Taiwan purchased 25 thousand tons of malt Click here
  
  
• Malting barley sales are handled differently in USA and Canada, said Vince Smith at the recent Alberta Agricultural Economists Association ... Click here
  
  
• EU feed barley exports were very limited since end of March. Exports licences taken to-date of 3,8 million tons are ... Click here
  
  

More news is available on site www.e-malt.com  

• “Lion Nathan, Australian brewer, will be able to draw from the gold chests of its Japanese parent, Kirin, in case it would like to make a major acquisition ...more info



• The Irish Prime Minister, Bertie Ahern, called on the industry representatives at the European Brewery Convention in Dublin to stop making and trading in alcopops and ...more info



• Sales of low-alcohol beer in Japan grew 2.2 times in 2002 over the previous year in contrast with a fall in sales of overall beer products, and they are expected to grow by more than 60% this year ...more info



• Denmark: In spite of a ban on alcohol in the workplace, masons at one company can have a cold beer while they're on break, a Danish labor court has ruled ...more info



• Heineken's Polish brewing group Zywiec posted a PLN 10 mln net profit in the first quarter of 2003, a welcome if modest improvement from the prior year's first quarter loss ...more info



• Belgian brewing force, Interbrew, announced on May 16 that its famous brand Stella Artois® became an Official Partner of the 2003 Film Festival of Cannes ...more info



• The Ukrainian brewing enterprises have asked the Ukrainian parliament (Verchovnaya Rada) not to sustain the offer of the government about rising the beer excise from 0.23 hryvnia per liter up to 0.26 hryvnia per liter ...more info



• Micro-breweries in Quebec, Canada, plan to launch an advertising campaign to inform consumers of the difficulties they claim to face getting their products in front of the public ...more info



• Spendrups Bryggeri AB, the Sweden beer maker, has posted an operating loss of SKr28 million in the first quarter of 2003, versus a loss of SKr3m in the first quarter of 2002 ...more info



• UBS Warburg, the investment bank, has cut its rating on Adolph Coors Co., USA based brewing force, from "buy" to "neutral" ...more info



• Southeast Asian beverage group Fraser & Neave Ltd (F&N) said it is on track to post double-digit full year earnings growth despite the SARS outbreak, after a higher-than-expected 35 % rise in first half profit ...more info



• SABMiller Plc, the world's second largest brewer, is set to report a profit jump next week boosted by its $5.6 billion Miller acquisition, but analysts remain concerned over when it will turn around the U.S. brewer ...more info




2. Brewery News

Import and Export of beer in Denmark



in million litres	1997	1998	1999	2000	2001	2002
Beer import	9.370	7.940	11.133	8.322	9.028	13.581
Beer Export	280.0	231.2	230.3	283.7	246.6	271.9


The Danish breweries export primarily to the Baltic, Poland, Russia and Italy. The main part of the Danish beer sold abroad is produced under licence, and is therefore not included in the export figures.

Danish brewers produce more than 700 million litres of beer annually. They sell more than 7.000 million litres of beer worldwide; employ more than 30.000 persons worldwide; supply the Danish government with more than DKK 1.400 millions of annual revenue, alone from taxes on beer.

Source: Danmarks Statistik, February 2003. Danish Brewers Association.

In March 2003 Ukraine imported 1555.4 thousand litres of beer (US$0.41 million), by 118.9% or with 844.98 thousand litres more than in February 2003, Ukrainian State Committee of statistics reported. As usual beer is manly imported from Russia (93.6% of all imported volume). Compared with March 2002, beer volumes in March 2003 declined by 12.9% or with 231.38 thousand litres. For the first three month of the year Ukraine imported 3003.46 thousand litres (US$ 0.82 million), 3.1% less then in the same period last year. In 2002 Ukraine imported 19.28 million litres of beer (US$5.66 million), 87.4% more (+8.99 million litres) then in 2001.

Swedish brewer Kopparbergs’ beer brand Sofiero Original has rocketed to the top of the list of best-selling Swedish beers. The brand Sofiero Original was launched just a few months ago. In April, Sofiero Original sold nearly 1.6 million litres at the alcohol monopoly Systembolaget. The number two seller, Carlsberg’s Millennium, sold just over 1.2 million litres. Part of the reason for the success of Sofiero Original is the pricing, which is very aggressive by Swedish standards. In fact, so aggressive competitors have accused Kopparbergs for cheating by putting beer with less alcohol in the cans. Kopparbergs CEO Peter Bronsman says these allegations are totally untrue, and merely a lousy ambush by envious competitors.

3. Malt News

USA: The Montana Department of Environmental Quality has recently issued an air quality permit to International Malting Co. The Milwaukee-based arm of Lesaffre International, announced in March that it would build a $60 to $75 million malting plant in the Electric City. Local officials expect the project to anchor a new industrial park. Construction is set to begin in June. The facility, expected to be the company's most efficient, modern malting plant, will be completed on a 10-acre site two miles north of Great Falls and west of Black Eagle Road in 2005. According to the permit, the construction will take place in two phases. After phase one, the plant will have the capacity to produce between eight and 12 million bushels of malt and malt byproduct annually. That amount will increase to 16 million bushels (0.25-million-metric tons) after phase two of construction. The facility is expected to employ roughly 35.

This year Taiwan purchased 25 thousand tons of malt, of which 21.4 thousand tons from the EU and 3.6 thousand tons from Australia. The reported price is US $ 316,50 CIF.

4. Barley News

Malting barley sales are handled differently in USA and Canada, said Vince Smith at the recent Alberta Agricultural Economists Association. American farmers are contracted to grow malting barley, while Canadians have what he called a "lottery" system. Smith said Canadians pass on opportunities to grow higher yielding feed barley varieties in hopes they will achieve malting quality. "That tends to generate much larger areas of malting barley plantings than you get in the United States." Maltsters like the system because they do not have to pay for storage. They carry about three months of inventory and farmers bear the rest of the storage costs on their farms until their grain is accepted.

EU feed barley exports were very limited since end of March. Exports licences taken to-date of 3,8 million tons are well below the expected 5 million tons for the crop year. Exports include at least 1,5 million tons of malting barley. But barley of crop 2002 is in small supply, it is not expected that intervention must absorb much more than the 1,3 million tons already tendered, domestic markets pay better prices. Question is, whether some of last year’s crops were overestimated or domestic usage was larger. Anyway, there will be no burdensome free market stocks at the beginning of the new crop year.