Tsingtao Brewery Co Ltd, China's best-known beer brand, announced a drastic cut in capital spending this year as consumption is expected to drop in a fiercely competitive market, Reuters reported on April, 14.

The brewer’s capital expenditures will fall to 900 million yuan ($131.8 million) in 2009 from 2 billion yuan in 2008, Tsingtao Chairman Jin Zhi Guo said.

The company is targeting 20 percent growth in sales of its Tsingtao brand - which comprised nearly half of the company's overall sales last year - compared with a 25.6 percent increase in 2008.

"Overall industry growth rate this year will not be higher than last year," Sun Ming Ho, president director at Tsingtao, said.

Industry growth, measured by production volume, was 5.5 percent last year, the slowest pace since 2005.

China's fiercely competitive beer market is suffering from overcapacity as nearly 400 domestic brewers vie with an increasing number of foreign companies expanding into the world's largest market by volume.

The company said last week in its full results that it aimed to achieve full-year sales growth that is 2 percentage points higher than that of the country's beer sector and to increase the sales volume of products with high margins.

Tsingtao reported sales revenues in 2008 ...More Info

Turkish conglomerate Anadolu Group could make foreign acquisitions for its beer unit, and expects domestic beer performance in the first quarter to match that of last year, Reuters reported on April, 14.

"We are targetting new countries in the beverage sector... and will evaluate acquisition opportunities abroad," Chief Executive Tuncay Ozilhan said.

Anadolu controls Turkey's market-leading brewer Anadolu Efes, which runs brewing operations in countries such as Russia, Kazakhstan, Georgia, Moldova and Serbia, where the beer market has grown rapidly in recent years.

Turkey, which has a young, growing and increasingly urban population has also offered an expanding market.

For 2008, brewer Anadolu Efes posted a 17 percent fall in net profit to 309.68 million lira ($193 million), despite a 21 percent rise in sales, blaming higher cost of debt and foreign exchange losses.

Higher commodities costs also knocked its gross profit margin down to 49.3 percent in 2008 from 50.6 percent in 2007.

Ozilhan said he expected commodity prices to fall in 2009, helping a recovery in profit margins without raising prices.

Efes has said it expects sales volume in Turkey to grow by low single digits in 2009, due to macroeconomic difficulties, and after volumes grew 12 percent in 2008.

In the first quarter of 2008 ...More Info

U.S. beer imports fell 19% in the first two months of the year, the Wall Street Journal posted on April, 11.

This has been one of the steepest declines in years and the latest indication that the weak economy is hurting even hardy industries, analysts point out.

Sales volume of imported beer, generally more expensive than domestic brews, is slowing as Americans cut discretionary spending. The beer industry's overall sales in the U.S. were down about 4% in the first two months of this year compared with the same period in 2008.

Shipments from Mexico fell 13.5%, while those from the Netherlands dropped 26%, according to the Beer Institute, a trade group in Washington, D.C. Those countries are the largest exporters of beer to the U.S., and the declines partly reflect sluggish sales for Mexican brewer Grupo Modelo SA's Corona Extra and Dutch brewer Heineken NV's flagship Heineken brand.

Imports face rising competition from similarly priced domestic "craft" beers, such as Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, but also appear to be losing sales to mass-marketed U.S. brands like MillerCoors LLC's Coors Light.

Last year, imported-beer shipments fell about 3.4%, the first drop since 1991, when an increase in the federal excise tax on beer curbed demand.

Crown ...More Info

South Korean retail giant Lotte Group may build a beer brewery to make its foray into the new market, if it loses a battle to buy the country's No. 2 beer maker, Reuters cited a newspaper report on April, 14.

Lotte has been seen as a top candidate to buy unlisted Oriental Brewery (OB) from Anheuser-Busch InBev, the Belgium-based world's largest brewer, in a deal estimated to fetch more than $2 billion.

"(We) will start a beer business even by building a plant," Hwang Gak-gyu, a Vice President of Lotte Group, was quoted as saying by the Maeil Business Newspaper.

"We have bought a liquor company. We will start a beer business no matter what we do," he added, referring to a domestic spirits-making brand it acquired earlier this year.

Lotte spokesman Lee Kwang-hoon said he could not confirm Hwang's remarks, which the daily interpreted as a move to put pressure on Anheuser-Busch InBev and other bidders for OB.

Beer would complete Lotte's product line-up, which includes popular local liquor soju and whisky. OB would give any buyer a 40 percent stake in a major beer market in which Hite Brewery commands the other 60 percent.

Private equity firms Affinity Equity Partners, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & ...More Info

Danish beer group Carlsberg A/S sees Asia as a key driver of growth for the group in the medium to long term, president and chief executive officer Jorgen Buhl Rasmussen was quoted as saying by The Star on April, 13.

“Key markets for us in Asia comprise China, Malaysia, Vietnam, India, Laos, Cambodia and Singapore, among others. There are many markets in the region with potential for future growth in terms of consumption per capita, for example, China and India’s huge population as well as Vietnam’s population increase,” he said.

Rasmussen said although Malaysia was not a big market for Carlsberg, it still played a key role in the group.

“Malaysia does not contribute much to group profitability but Carlsberg is a significant brand in this market with a high market share and strong brand position. Whenever we sit back in Copenhagen and talk about our different markets, Malaysia is almost always on the agenda,” he said.

Top on the list for the Malaysian operations is to grow its market share and improve earnings.

“We have reversed the negative trend in 2007 after the restructuring, stabilised the business last year and are now on a stronger platform to grow the business. We aim to start ...More Info

The US Brewers Association, which represents the majority of brewing companies in the country, announced on April, 13 the annual list of top 50 brewing companies.

Released are lists for both Top 50 Craft Brewing Companies of small and independent craft brewers plus a Top 50 Overall Brewing Companies list. Rankings are based on sales volume in 2008.

"In 2007, 35 of the top 50 brewing companies were small and independent craft brewers. In 2008 there were 37," states Paul Gatza, Director of the Brewers Association. "Craft brewers continue to have success and generate excitement behind the flavorful beer movement, but not without recent challenges including price increases for raw materials and supplies, as well as access to market issues."

According to the Brewers Association, the top 5 overall brewing companies in the US are: Anheuser-Busch InBev, MillerCoors, Pabst Brewing, Boston Beer Co., and D.G. Yuengling and Son Inc.

The top 5 craft brewing companies by sales volume in 2008 are: Boston Beer Co., Sierra Nevada Brewing Co., New Belgium Brewing Co., Spoetzl Brewery, and Pyramid Breweries Inc.

Arbitration court of St. Petersburg and Leningrad district has transmitted to the Moscow Arbitrage Court the suit brought by Baltika Breweries against the maltster Russkiy Solod, RBC reported on April, 10.

According to records of court, Russia’s largest brewer requests the invalidation of a RUB4 bln contract.

The disputed contract of delivery for 218.07 thousand tonnes of malt was signed in April 2008. The plaintiff claims that the delivery volume was imposed on it by the respondent and was more than twice as much as Baltika’s malt needs. Besides, the price of malt on Russia’s market at the moment when the contract was signed was much lower than the price set by Russkyi Solod, which abused in this way its dominating market position.

Baltika’s suit was not officially registered in the files of the Moscow Arbitrage Court as at April, 10, sources said.

It will be recalled that at the end of December 2008 Russkiy Solod (Russian Malt), the largest maltster in Russia, has filed a lawsuit with the Moscow’s Arbitrary Court demanding almost 1.6 bln roubles from Baltika Breweries in payment of the malt produced for the brewer.

The sum also included a fine for breach of contract obligation for delivery of malt ...More Info

According to Coceral's initial estimates released at the end of last month, the barley plantings of selected EU large and important malting barley producers are as follows:

Germany’s total barley acreage is expected to make 1,951 thousand ha in 2009 (1,969 thousand ha in 2008), barley production is forecast to decline from last year’s 12,031 thousand tons to 11,921 thousand tons in 2009.

France’s total barley acreage to increase by 1.44% to 1,823 thousand ha, production to decline by 4.67% to 11,758 thousand tons in 2009 (12,309 thousand tons last year).

Spain is expected to plant about 3,100 thousand ha of barley this year (- 11.68% versus the nation’s barley acreage in 2008). Production is forecast to drop 25.12% to 9,000 thousand tons of barley (11,261 thousand tons in 2008).

Coceral expects the UK to slightly increase this year its total barley acreage to 1,075 thousand ha (1,036 thousand ha in 2008). The nation’s barley production is forecast to make 6,361 thousand tons in 2009 (6,242 thousand tons in 2008).

Denmark is expected to see this year a drop both in barley acreage and production: 610 thousand ha versus 716 thousand planted to barley in 2008 and 3,111 thousand tons of barley produced versus 3,361 ...More Info

The International Financial Corporation (IFC), part of the World Bank group, has plans to allocate a USD 25 million credit to New World Grain Ukraine, a Ukrainian joint venture set in mid-2007 by France's Soufflet and Australia's ABB Grain, finchannel.com reported on April, 14.

According to a statement made by the IFC, the funds will be provided for three years to replenish the capital of New World Grain Ukraine and subsequent boosting of the volumes of grain trade operations.

The IFC Board of Directors will study the issue of granting the loan on May, 13.

Soufflet and ABB Grain have equal 50:50 shares in the grain trading joint venture New World Grain Ukraine. The Kyiv-based company accumulates grain from farmers and local trading companies, manages supply chain activities and markets grain domestically up to the point of export within the Ukrainian grain market.

Soufflet and ABB Grain are the main buyers of the exported grain right to the export delivery point.

Soufflet and ABB Grain are the world’s leading malt producers and barley vendors.

Vesna Jerkovic, Fanny Nguyen, Aurore Timmermans and Sonia Collin

Abstract:
J. Inst. Brew. 114(2), 143–149, 2008 Three resveratrol extraction procedures were compared in beer. Two-step pre-cleaning with toluene and cyclohexane allows 76% trans-resveratrol recovery by solid-phase extraction (SPE) before RP-HPLC-MS/MS analysis. This procedure proved much more efficient than liquid/liquid extraction, which requires solvents that are too hydrophobic for stilbenoids. SPME-GC-MS, where the main limiting factor is non-reproducibility from fibre to fibre, is an interesting alternative for resveratrol quantification in complex mixtures where pre-cleaning is too difficult. With the optimized SPE procedure, 5 µg.L^-1 trans-resveratrol was detected in four commercial beers. However, concentrations of stilbenoids in beer should be higher taking into account the presence of cis-stilbenoids. During fermentation, trans-resveratrol was partially regenerated from its glucoside, more stable through beer aging. Adding a stilbenoids-enriched ethanolic hop extract after fermentation significantly increases the beer stilbenoids potential. Key words: Aging, beer, fermentation, piceid, resveratrol, RPHPLC- MS/MS, SPME-GC-MS, stilbenoids, wort. Load full article, 7 pages, 562 Kb, PDF file