Russia: SUN InBev to resume bottling Tinkoff beer only if the market sufficiently improves

SUN InBev, the Russian subsidiary of the Belgian brewing giant AB InBev, has no plans to resume the production of its Russian premium Tinkoff beer, FoodBizDaily cited a company official on November, 12.

Last year InBev stopped its plant in the Leningrad region which bottled Tinkoff beer. At that time the company promised to transfer the production capacities of the brand to other plants, however those plans failed.

According to InBev, the bottling of Tinkoff will be resumed in the case of more favorable market conditions.

Tinkoff brand was established by a well-known Russian businessman Oleg Tinkov in 1998 and became one of the most expensive beers on the Russian market. The advertising budget of Tinkoff was $8.9 million dollars per year. The beer was produced in a factory in the city of Pushkin, Leningrad region. In 2005 the businessman sold this site to InBev for nearly 167 million euros.

In December 2008 InBev announced that it will stop the St. Petersburg’s enterprise due to necessity of total manufacturing optimization. The company assured all the St. Petersburg’s brands, will be transferred to other Russian enterprises.

According to the representative of InBev Ilya Lysenko, the company has no plans to resume the production of Tinkoff.

"This brand is still in our portfolio and its future prospects will depend on market conditions," Mr. Lysenko said.

Meanwhile, according to leading Russian analysts, Tinkoff brand is not so important for InBev. "It has never had a big market share, and was only known for its aggressive advertising campaigns on TV with images of naked girls," experts said.

13 November, 2009