1. Trading offer & request

At this moment there is one OFFER for 4000 tons of malt on the trading portal www.e-malt.com

• Offer for 1-4000 mtons of malt, 2RS Scarlet/Aspen, crop 2003, bulk, delivery 1/1/2004 - 31/3/2004, at EUR 271.50/mton, FOB Antwerp. (to see and make a bid to the malt offer, please click here to view code MF0209P1645)
  
  

 Top Industry News 

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

• Japanese beer maker, Kirin Brewery Co., plans to unify food-and-beverage-related research and development for all its group companies ...more info



• The Turkey’s brewing force, Turk Tuborg, mainly owned by the Danish brewing group, Carlsberg, has posted a net profit of TL8.9 trillion, (EUR 5.9 million) for the first six months of 2003 ...more info



• San Miguel Corp, Southeast Asia's largest food and beverage conglomerate, said on September 3 it expects to hit its 2003 net profit target of about seven billion pesos ($127.7 million) ...more info



• The Netherlands’ beer maker, Grolsch, has posted a net profit of EUR 12.7 million for the first six months of the current year 6.7% up versus the first half of 2002 ...more info



• The Polish Ministry of Finance is suggesting lowering the excise tax on beer twice in 2004, the Polish press reported on September 3. Last year the tax was cut 30% ...more info



• Australia’s beverage company, Foster’s Group Limited (Foster’s), announced on September 4, 2003 the appointment of Neville Fielke as Senior Vice President Global Strategy and Business Development ...more info



• Premium products and imports are increasing their shares of Australia's shrinking beer market ...more info



• China Resources Enterprise (CRE), a Beijing-backed conglomerate with a retail and distribution focus, said it would spend 195 million yuan (HK$183 million) to increase stakes in three Hubei breweries ...more info



• The Danish beer maker, Carlsberg A/S, announced on September 2 that it had learned through a press release issued by Chang Beverages Pte Ltd. that Chang Beverages has initiated arbitration proceedings ...more info



• Canada’s brewing force, Molson Inc., announced on August 25 that it is gearing up for the export market and has hired a senior executive, Don J. Blaustein, Vice-President, Export Development ...more info

2. Brewery News

The Netherlands’ beer maker, Heineken Holding N.V., announced on September 5, that its 100% subsidiary Heineken Nederlands Beheer B.V. has stated that it will implement a number of reorganisational activities to safeguard its long-term business development. As a result Heineken expects that in two years time, 450 job functions will cease to exist, the company said. Agreement was reached with the trade unions on a 'social plan' at the end of 2002. To cover costs of reorganisation, provisions will be made of approximately € 70 million before tax, which will be charged to the 2003 consolidated profit and loss account of Heineken N.V. It is expected that these costs will be recovered in three years. “With the gradual structural decline in the Dutch beer market expected to continue, Heineken is convinced that the proposed measures are necessary to maintain its leading position in the Netherlands.” ”The emphasis in all cases will be on improving efficiency and cutting costs, which will mean centralising a number of support departments. To minimise the impact on the personnel, the plan agreed between Heineken and the trade unions at the end of 2002 guarantees that the employees affected will be given full assistance, for a year to eighteen months, to find new jobs, in the first instance within Heineken and, if that cannot be arranged, outside the company.”

By the end of 2005, beer consumption in Byelorussia could be up from a projected 23.7 liters per person in 2003 to 51 liters. That means that if now every Byelorussian drinks one standard beer bottle (0.33 liter) every five days, then in 2005 he (or she) will consume one bottle every two and a half days. Until this year, beer production had fallen every year since 1999. By international standards, the Belarusian beer market is small beer. Spirits, and vodka in particular, are the drinks of choice, beer the dregs. But those who run this centrally controlled economy are determined that things should change. By 2005, the aim of Byelorussian government is for imports to account for only 5.5 % of the beer sold in the country. After further regulations imposed this April and June, it has become nearly impossible to import beer, particularly for smaller breweries. The price of a license for a consignment is now $10,700 (paid in advance), the size of the minimum consignment has increased, and a new excise tax has been introduced. And those were just a few of the restrictions. Unsurprisingly, the flow of Russian beer has slowed. Baltika has even gone off-tap. The price of Russian beer sold in Belarus has rocketed up 30%. The differential is likely to widen. New limitations are expected in 2004, with a new tax on beer equivalent to 2 % of the cost of domestic beer, and 10 % for imported beer. The same logic underlies the government’s attempt to increase domestic production of barley. It is a tough task. In 2002, brewers bought only 33,200 tons of Belarusian (relatively low-quality) barley with the other 95,000 tons coming from abroad (principally Denmark and France). This year, 110,000 to 112,000 tons should be bought domestically, it recommended...more info

The Japanese brewing force, Asahi Breweries Ltd., announced on September 2 that it will begin marketing a new nonalcoholic beer, Asahi Point One, on November 5, Asia Pulse Pte Ltd. Reported. Nonalcoholic beers that are made in Japan have an alcohol content of 0.1 % to 0.5 %. In response to a survey that indicated that consumers want the alcohol content of such drinks to be as low as possible, Asahi has kept the alcohol content of the new product to below 0.1 %. The suggested retail price is 130 yen (US$1.11) for a 350ml can, and 150 yen for a 334ml bottle. The company aims to sell 150,000 cases before the end of this year. According to Asahi, about 1.86 million cases of nonalcoholic beer were sold domestically in 2002, twice the amount sold in the previous year. The company predicts that 3 million cases will be sold this year.

Chang Beverages Pte Ltd, a Singapore-incorporated firm associated with Thai liquor tycoon Charoen Sirivadhanabhakdi, is pursuing arbitration in London to settle a dispute with the Danish brewer Carlsberg Breweries A/S, Bangkokpost reported. Chang made the announcement on September 2, 2003 in a statement under the headline: "Carlsberg's high-handed behaviour and bullying tactics rejected by the joint-venture partner (Chang Beverages)." Chang said the business partnership dated back to the 1990s with an agreement to create a joint-venture vehicle, Carlsberg Asia Pte Ltd, with the aim of expanding joint operations in Asia. "But after CBAS (Carlsberg Breweries A/S) underwent various management changes in 2001, CBAS attempted to take a number of steps designed to bring an end to the joint venture, the first of which was in March 2003, when several Chang Beverages-nominated directors were removed by CBAS," the statement said. In August, CBAS said it was terminating the joint venture. On each occasion, CBAS acted unilaterally and without prior consultation or notice, Chang said. The company said it gave Carlsberg ”several opportunities to reinstate Chang Beverages directors and to cure various breaches of the contract"...more info

3. Malt News

Brazil purchased 5,000 tonnes of Chilean malt at US $ 313 CIF. For purchases inside Mercosur Brazilian brewers save import taxes of 6 % on the invoice value plus 25 % on the ocean freight. Two of the larger breweries are also expected in the market soon, No. 1 Ambev remains silent. The national strike in Venezuela early this year has influenced the malt needs of that country.

4. Barley News

Europe, from Russia to Spain, was hardly hit this year, analysts said. Winter wheat and winter barley crops were decimated by frost, drought and heat. During August a record heat wave destroyed maize crops, particularly in France and Italy. Official estimates put the total grain crop of France 19 % below last year’s figure and that of Germany 9 % lower. The EU Commission estimates the EU grain crop at 188.5 million tonnes, down 11 % from the 212 million tonnes of last year. The Northwest of Europe, Ireland, UK, Scandinavia escaped from the worst conditions. As a large acreage of winter grains was ploughed up and replanted in spring, the EU ends up with a strange crop result: small and insufficient supplies of wheat and feed grains, but an abundance of malting barley. Spring barley plantings were also expanded in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Russia and the Ukraine, but only the Czechs harvested a larger crop than last year. The Balkan countries experienced an extremely bad year and harvested miserable crops of all grains. One example: Moldavia’s grain crop in 2003 was 10 % of the 2002 harvest.

U.S.A., Idaho: Last week local barley prices were 5 to 40 cents higher in southern Idaho and 5 to 10 cents higher in northern Idaho, according to the Idaho Grain Mrket Price Report from August 28, 203. USDA’s sales report showed no barley export shipments for last week. US barley export sales were 55.0 TMT. Although the EU Grains Management Committee has suspended weekly export tenders for barley to conserve barley for domestic markets, they approved a total of 92 TMT of daily export licenses during the week, bringing the total to 152 TMT since the beginning of August. The Japanese Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries’ purchased 20 TMT of feed barley from Australia last week. Stats Canada issued their revised barley crop production estimate on August 21, showing a Canadian barley crop of 12.025 MMT, up 65% from last year and above a 10-year average of 11.4 MMT. Yields were pegged at 47.4 bushels/acre, lagging behind the 10-year average of 53.6 bu/A. (1MT of barley=45.93 bu)

Newsletter Links Improvement

Dear E-malt Reader!

In order to make our newsletter more useful & intuitive we have improved our news links system. Up to now, you were forced to input your username/password in order to get access to the news page when clicking the news link. Moreover, you didn’t get direct access to the news page through news link. Now, when you click the news link, e-malt.com system automatically finds out your rights. If you are already a registered user, you’d get access to the page containing news, as well as to the whole e-malt.com system. If you are not, you’d go to the Free E-malt Registration Form, and get all the access rights after your registration – i.e. get access to the page containing news, as well as to the whole e-malt.com system.
Thank You!