Top Industry News 

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• Russia may export around 5 million tonnes of wheat and barley of this year's harvest, experts at the Russian Grain Union said ...more info



• Carlsberg Breweries is expecting to de-list its Polish subsidiary, Okocim, from the Warsaw bourse when the country enters the European Union ...more info



• The British beer-maker Greene King PLC has appointed Norman Murray as a non-executive director with effect from January 1 ...more info



• Standard & Poor's Ratings Services said on November 11 that its ratings and outlook on AmBev-Companhia de Bebidas das Americas will not be affected by the announcement of the company's third-quarter ...more info



• Carlsberg's 50 %-owned Baltic Beverages Holding (BBH), the brewer of Russia's top-selling Baltika beer, saw nine-month EBITA falling 17 % to 853 million crowns ...more info



• Denmark's Carlsberg Breweries posted a smaller-than-forecast drop in nine-month profits on November 7 but cut its full-year forecast, as expected ...more info



• The Belgian brewing force, Interbrew, announced on November 10 that the global advertising agencies Leo Burnett (Chicago) and Bartle Bogle Hegarty (London) had been awarded ...more info




2. Brewery News

Carlsberg Breweries A/S published on November 10 that it had increased its shareholding in the Bulgarian brewery Shumensko Pivo AD to 89 % through the acquisition of a further 29.6 % of the share capital. The shares have been acquired from Ferroal Ltd. and the parties have agreed not to disclose the purchase price. Carlsberg Breweries also owns 98 % of the Bulgarian brewery Pirinsko Pivo and the increased shareholding in Shumensko is part of Carlsberg Breweries' plan to integrate the two breweries and to strengthen its position in Bulgaria. The history of the Shumensko brewery dates back to 1882 and the beer brand Shumensko is a quality brand rich in tradition. The total market is 4.5 million hl beer and the Bulgarian annual per capita consumption is 54 litres.

Companhia de Bebidas das Américas (AmBev), world’s fifth largest brewer and Brazil’s leading beverage company, posted on November 10 a third quarter consolidated net profit of 340.4 million reais ($119 million), 32 % weaker than in the year-earlier period. However, consolidated earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization rose to 777.8 million reais from 644.4 million reais in the same three-month period in 2002 (up 20.7%), AmBev said in a statement. Consolidated Operations are comprised of AmBev’s Brazilian Operations and its International Operations, which include AmBev’s 43.3% economic stake in Quinsa and other International Operations (currently Venezuela, but beginning in the fourth quarter 2003 also Guatemala and Peru). AmBev had already said third-quarter beer sales in Brazil were down 12.3 % from a year earlier. Its share of the Brazilian beer market, where AmBev makes most of its revenue, dropped to 66.1 % from 70.1 % at the end of June. But a hike in the price of beer, cost savings, more direct distribution and a higher proportion of sales of premium brands helped offset weaker sales, currency hedge costs and higher prices for ingredients such as barley and corn, AmBev said. The results showed that while the cost of goods sold rose 55.4 million reais in the quarter, the company saved 54.3 million reais in sales and administrative costs...more info

Japanese brewing force, Kirin Brewery Co., posted on November 11 its group sales and profits for the nine-month period through September grew on year as strength in soft drink and other operations made up for a slump in its mainline beer business, Dow Jones Newswires reported. Kirin said its group net profit grew 13% to Y34.87 billion from the Y30.86 billion it posted for the same period last year. Group sales edged up 0.1% to Y1.174 trillion from Y1.172 trillion. For the full business year ending December, Kirin kept intact the outlook it made in August. It continues to expect a group operating profit of Y90 billion, a net profit of Y33 billion and sales of Y1.610 trillion. A wet and unusually cool summer in Japan this year cast a cloud over the beer industry in July and August. In addition, a May tax hike and consequent price rise for relatively low-priced low-malt beer products prompted some consumers to shift to other low-priced alcoholic beverages, such as "chuhai" fruit-flavored alcoholic beverages. As a result, industrywide beer shipments during the January-September period fell 7.5% in volume on year. A Kirin spokesman said the company's beer sales were mostly in line with the industrywide decline...more info

Slovakia: Heineken Slovensko, a unit of the Dutch brewer that controls 43 % of the domestic beer market, said on November 7 that reduced demand had forced it to shut the doors at its brewery in the northern central Slovak town of Martin, one of four it owns, under the Reuters report. Spokesman Peter Svec said the main reason for the closure was that beer drinkers had less money in their pockets following hikes in excise taxes on beer and other goods by the finance ministry after it underestimated the 2003 budget. "The decline in people's purchasing power has resulted in a significant decline in beer sales," Svec said. The hikes, which added around 1.5 koruna (four U.S. cents) per 15 koruna bottle, should cause beer consumption to fall for the first time since 1994, Roman Sustak, director of the Slovak Beer and Malt Producers Association, said. "We expected consumption to go even higher this year. But now we think there might be an annual decline of around 5 percent," Sustak said. "We have seen only slight adjustments to beer prices, but consumers have reacted very strongly."...more info

3. Malt News

EU malt export licence bookings for July-October, 2003 are 1.265 million tonnes versus 775,000 tonnes at the same time last year. The comparison is distorted by panic bookings earlier in the campaign, this year's figures neither reflect sales done nor the pace of shipments. Malt export shipments in 2002 had been more than 2.3 million tonnes, licence bookings during the grain year 2002/03 only 2.0 million tonnes. Maltsters are afraid that exports during 2003/04 may hardly reach the 2 million mark. Sales to Russia, Japan, Brazil and Venezuela are lagging behind last year's figures. In the larger import markets malt prices have not recovered, since the dumping battle started two months ago. Prices around EUR 250,- FOB Antwerp, in bulk, for two-row spring barley malt and about EUR 5,- less for six-row winter barley malt, are so low that a good number of maltsters decided not to participate in a recent sales round. Those prices leave malting margins in the neighbourhood of only EUR 50,- per ton. One should imagine that the change in the Euro/U.S.$, parity played a major part in the difficulties to sell malt from the EU, but the major wounds were inflicted by competition amongst the Europeans themselves.



(in tonnes)	2000 - 2001	2001 - 2002	2002 - 2003	July 1, 2003 - October 28, 2003
France	523,190	701,134	661,772	412,150
Germany	305,980	468,314	408,063	161,018
Belgium	277,584	296,368	287,850	183,277
U.K.	254,793	350,621	294,995	317,574
Finland	65,550	91,890	100,758	42,932
Denmark	52,326	96,812	94,791	28,210
Sweden	50,847	101,000	76,916	43,596
Netherlands	54,835	51,310	66,219	49,721
Ireland	26,003	35,145	31,140	11,900
Austria	4,850	8,840	8,620	4,240
Spain	3,000	2,400	5,640	10,000
Greece	1,800	1,744	1,306	200
Portugal	340	221	85	219
Italy	-	-	2	-
Total:	1,621,098	2,205,799	2,038,157	1,265,037




	Total Wheat malt, tonnes
Total 2000/2001	4,686
Total 2001/2002	12,805
Total 2002/2003	30,908
July 1/03 – October 28/03	2,750
	Total Roasted malt, tonnes
Total 2000/2001	23,967
Total 2001/2002	23,480
Total 2002/2003	23,603
July 1/03 – October 28/03	8,688



4. Barley News

Bavaria Breweries of Colombia has purchased recently 180,000 tonnes of malting barley for their factories along the South American Pacific coast, at prices around US $ 180,- CIF, about 100,000 tonnes Australian, 50,000 tonnes Canadian and 30,000 tonnes EU (Scarlett).

The Canadian Wheat Board expects its sales to rebound this year to about 16 million tonnes of wheat, durum and barley after drought slashed shipments last year, a marketing official said on November 7. "We're pretty comfortable with the sales program we have on the books right now," Ward Weisensel, the CWB's executive vice-president for marketing, said in an interview with Reuters. The CWB, which has a monopoly on western Canadian wheat and barley sales to domestic millers, maltsters and export markets, plans 2003-04 sales of 2 million tonnes of feed and malting barley, Weisensel said. Its sales year runs from August to July. In 2002-03, the CWB sold only 8.7 million tonnes of grain -- less than half of its 10-year average, Wiesensel said, after drought withered yields on the Prairie grain belt and a wet harvest damaged quality.