Japanese beverage company, Sapporo Beer’s Beverage Co., plans to restructure its operations with the purpose to reduce costs, local press reported. The company, battling in a sluggish soft drinks market in Japan, hopes to turn its profit around after two years of negative performance. Reports suggest that Sapporo will cease production of glass-bottled drinks at its Kanagawa factory early next year. It plans to farm out production soon afterwards. The company will continue to make drinks in PET and cans at the site. Sapporo also plans to cut costs at its subcontractor production facilities, and to consolidate its output by product type.

According to the reports, Sapporo will also reduce the number of distribution sites it has by around 30% from the current 100 sites. These moves are part of a plan to reduce its annual subcontractor production costs, currently at around 5 billion yen (US$46.1m), by 30%.

17 December, 2003