Anheuser-Busch InBev, the world’s largest brewing company, reported on March, 5 its full year and fourth quarter 2008 results.

The Belgium-based brewer said its consolidated volumes for FY08 were flat. The brewer’s own beer volumes decreased 0.3%, slightly ahead of overall beer volumes, which declined by 0.8%, as a result of the ongoing focus on growing its own branded volumes. For 4Q08 total volumes fell 1.8%, own beer declined 2.0% and total beer decreased 2.3%.

Last year, AB InBev’s market share grew in 7 out of its top markets: United States, Argentina, Germany, Belgium, South Korea, Canada and the UK.

Total revenues for FY08 grew 5.2%, totalling 16,102 mln euro, and revenues per hectolitre increased 5.6% reflecting the continued improved product mix and revenue management activities implemented across its businesses. In the fourth quarter, total revenues increased 4.2% and 7.1% per hectolitre, as year end price actions took effect.

The brewer’s total Cost of Sales (CoS) for FY08 increased by 8.3% overall and 9.1% on a per hectolitre basis due to inflationary and commodity pressures. In 2008, it saw the combined effects of lower than expected volume growth in Zones with below average CoS/hl especially in Latin America North and Central and Eastern ...More Info

Heineken’s Czech breweries produced 2.8 million hectolitres of beer last year, the group's spokeswoman Katerina Eliasova was quoted as saying by CTK on March, 5.

The Netherland-based company is the number three brewer on the Czech market.

Two thirds of the output went to the domestic market and some 860,000 hectolitres were exported.

The group's Czech members are the breweries Starobrno, Kralovsky pivovar Krusovice and the group of breweries Drinks Union. It exports beer in particular to Germany, Russia and Ukraine.

The Dutch group entered the Czech beer market in 2003 when it bought Starobrno. Kralovsky pivovar Krusovice was added in 2007 and Drinks Union in 2008. Drinks Union has four breweries.

Experts believe further acquisitions may continue. The company has thus far been trying to be number one or two in all Central European countries.

Sales director Jiri Danek confirmed Heineken's plans for further strengthening of its position on the domestic market.

"Our goal now is to consolidate the existing groups, and then we will seek further acquisitions to boost our growth in the Czech Republic. No specific plan now exists, but if an interesting opportunity appears, we will certainly try it," Danek said.

Heineken, the number three on the world beer market, saw sales jump by ...More Info

Companhia de Bebidas das Americas – AmBev – announced on March, 5 its results for the fourth quarter 2008.

The Brazilian subsidiary of Anheuser-Busch InBev said its beer volumes fell 0.9% (rose 0.2% organically) to 31,387.4 mln Reais in Q4 2008.

Top line growth of +6.5% was driven by price increases across the brewer’s regions and its continued focus on revenue management best practices. Good performances by Quinsa and North America with +7.4% and 0.5% volume growth, respectively, were offset by weak volumes in Brazil with Brazil Beer volumes declining -1.4%. AmBev’s market share in Brazil declined during the quarter and reached 67.5% (-100 bps yoy).

Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) and Selling, General & Administrative (SG&A) expenses: COGS per hectoliter increased 9.7% in the quarter due to inflation and higher commodity prices, principally in Quinsa and Labatt. Expected gains arising from sugar and currency hedges helped to partly offset these increases. SG&A (excl. depreciation & amortization) increased organically by 16.2% in Q4 2008 due to inflation, investments to support the company’s innovations and a very tough comparison from Q4 2007, mainly in Brazil.

AmBev’s EBITDA reached R$2,920.3 million during Q4 2008, which represents an organic decline of 0.8%. EBITDA margin in ...More Info

MillerCoors said that growing its premium light brands, including slumping flagship brew Miller Lite, will be key to its success, the Associated Press reported on March, 4.

MillerCoors Chief Executive Leo Kiely told a gathering of analysts that MillerCoors, a joint operation between Molson Coors Brewing Co. and SABMiller's U.S. unit, is cutting costs despite high input costs and a weak economy. MillerCoors, which started operating in July, is on track to meet its target of saving $500 million in costs by 2011.

But key to the company's long-term growth, Kiely said, will be expanding its top-selling light brands like Coors Light and Miller Lite, which compete in the light beer segment that dominates the U.S. market.

Coors Light has been growing steadily, while Miller Lite sales have been falling. Miller Lite sales to retailers dropped 7.5 percent in the three-month period ending in December, while Coors Light sales grew 1 percent.

Kiely said Miller Lite slumped because it relies heavily on sales in restaurants and bars - where recession-weary consumers are cutting their spending. He said Miller Lite's so-called on-premise business is one-third larger than Coors Light's.

"When that channel gets hit, Miller Lite gets hit," he said.

The company also shed unprofitable business with ...More Info

Kirin Holdings Co. announced on March, 6 that it will launch a tender offer to buy a 5.75% stake in San Miguel Brewery Inc. from shareholders other than the Philippine's largest brewery's parent, San Miguel Corp.

Through the tender offer, Kirin seeks to acquire all tendered shares that are not owned by SMB's parent company San Miguel Corporation. The number of shares Kirin intends to acquire through the tender offer is 886,111,000 shares (5.75% of the issued and outstanding shares). The purchase price is Php8.841 per share, resulting in a total acquisition price for the tendered shares of approximately Php7.83 billion.

The tender offer period will begin at 9:30 a.m. of March 16 and end at 12:00 noon of April 17.

Kirin is currently preparing to acquire 6,665,023,690 SMB shares (43.249% of the issued and outstanding shares) owned by SMC through a private transaction. The purchase price for the private transaction will be at the same price per share as the tender offer price, resulting in a total acquisition price of approximately Php58.93 billion. The purchase for the private transaction will be made in two phases, targeting for final closing by the end of May 2009.

By combining both transactions, Kirin will be able ...More Info

Anheuser-Busch InBev, the world’s biggest brewer, might eventually sell its Russian beer business as it raises cash to pay down debt and focuses on its more profitable American beer brands, The Financial Times posted analysts’ opinion on March, 4.

The Leuven, Belgium-based company is the second-biggest brewer in Russia after Baltika, which is owned by Denmark’s Carlsberg.

SUN InBev, the group’s Russian business, sells a range of local brands as well as Beck’s and Stella Artois, and is estimated to be worth $6 bln. The business, which controls about 19 per cent of the Russian beer market, is not understood to be among the key assets AB InBev is trying to get rid of to raise about $3 bln to pay down a bridge loan due at the end of this year.

However, with the US due to contribute the biggest share of the company’s profits from next year – and sales of mass market brands such as Bud improving – the value of Russia to InBev is declining.

The company has also been losing market share in Russia, while Baltika, its competitor, has been gaining share, now accounting for about 38 per cent of the market.

Trevor Stirling, an analyst at Bernstein Research, said: ...More Info

The general outlook for the EU crop of 2009 is good, IGC analysts communicated this week.

The IGC estimates plantings of winter barley of 5.7 mln ha (last year 5.6) and 8.6 mln ha (8.9) of spring barley.

Total barley acres will drop sharply in Scandinavia, spring barley plantings will be down about 10% in Germany and up about 15% in the U.K.

No reports of winter kill and sufficient soil moisture give a good base for a large grain crop. In former years Mediterranean countries used to suffer from dry winters, but this is already the third year in a row with good soil moisture in the Iberian Peninsula and Italy.

Nevertheless Spain planted only 3.223 mln ha of barley, which is 93% of last year’s 3.462 mln ha. Poor planting conditions and farmers’ dissatisfaction with market prices and the high cost of input reduced plantings, not only of barley, but of all grains are characterizing the industry in Spain.

France reports a winter barley acreage of 1.28 mln ha. Private estimates are that this acreage includes 50,000 ha of 2rw Vanessa and Metaxa barley and 450,000 tons of 6row winter barley, of which 40 % Cervoise, 30 % the new variety ...More Info

The Ukrainian barley crop of 2008 is estimated at 12.3 mln tons, Ukrainian analysts confirmed earlier this month.

The nation’s exports of the campaign are set at 6.7 mln tonnes and the carry-over stocks – at 1.3 mln. By the end of January, 4.93 mln tonnes of Ukrainian barley were already shipped.

Russia’s crop 2008 is a record 23.1 mln tons, exports will be 2.1 and the carry-over 4.4 mln tons. Shipments to-date are 1.55 mln tons, barley sales to Russian intervention are estimated at 925,000 tons.

Radoslav Selecky Daniela Smogrovicova and Pavol Sulo

Abstract:
J. Inst. Brew. 114(2), 97–101, 2008 A collection of Saccharomyces cerevisiae strains deficient in the tricarboxylic acid cycle enzymes activities has been examined for the production of beer with reduced ethanol content. Strains deficient in fumarase and ?-ketoglutarate dehydrogenase encoded by the genes FUM1 (0.48%), KGD1 (0.42%) and KGD2 (0.48%) made non-alcoholic beers with an alcohol content lower than 0.5% (v/v). The rest of the yeast mutants also gave rise to low-alcoholic beers but with a slightly elevated ethanol concentration (mostly in the range of 0.57–0.84% and 1.64% for the lip5 mutant). Low ethanol content was compensated by the considerable increase of organic acids (citrate succinate, fumarate, and malate). In addition, some of the mutants released high levels of lactic acid (144 (fum1), 622 (kgd1) and 495 (kgd2) mg/L). Lactic acid protects beers against contamination and masks an unacceptable worty off-flavour. Key words: beer, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, tricarboxylic acid cycle. Load full article, 5 pages, 388 Kb, PDF file