SABMiller plc, world’s second-largest brewer, issued on April, 16 the update on trading for the 12 months to 31 March 2009.

SABMiller’s lager volumes for the full year were 2% ahead of the prior year and level on an organic basis, with a 1% decline in the fourth quarter, as economic conditions deteriorated in the second half and consumer demand has fallen in most markets, particularly in the fourth quarter.

Group revenue has continued to benefit from price increases and has grown in high single digits for the full year on an organic basis at constant rates of exchange. Financial performance has been impacted by significant unfavourable currency movements in the second half of the year. However, the financial results of the group remain in line with our expectations, SABMiller said.

In Latin America, lager volumes were up 1% for the year, with a decline in the fourth quarter.

In Colombia, full year volumes were down 6% despite a continuing rise in SABMiller’s share of total alcohol. The fourth quarter was soft, reflecting deteriorating consumer demand and beer price increases. In Peru, volumes ended 9% above the prior year and the brewer gained market share. Growth in the last quarter slowed significantly ...More Info

Big brewers report a slowdown in sales growth, but they say Africa nevertheless offers rich expansion prospects compared with elsewhere, and even reduced growth on the continent will outstrip that of other regions this year, Reuters communicated on April, 17.

"For sure we're seeing an impact, but still Africa is in growth, is providing more growth than many other parts of the world, and that's the environment where we're operating," said Nick Blazquez, Diageo's managing director for Africa.

The International Monetary Fund has cut its 2009 economic growth forecast for sub-Saharan Africa to 2.2 percent from 5.1 percent six months ago, although that is still well ahead of the 3-percent-plus contraction expected in advanced economies.

Lower commodity export revenues and a slowdown in remittance income from workers overseas are squeezing disposable incomes and currency fluctuations are hurting some breweries, which mostly rely heavily on imported materials.

East African Breweries, Kenya's leading brewery which is majority-owned by Diageo, is cutting jobs after pre-tax profit growth slowed to 5 percent in the six months to Dec. 31 from 22 percent a year earlier, mainly as a result of high input costs.

With beer sales holding up better than in most regions, investments in new capacity in Africa, ...More Info

Brewing industry suppliers are feeling the pressure of doing business with Anheuser-Busch InBev, as the new brewing giant pursues a closely-watched plan to slash billions of dollars in costs over the next three years, The Wall Street Journal posted on April, 16.

AB InBev wants to negotiate new contract terms with companies throughout its supply chain, in a sign that the Belgium-based brewer is moving aggressively to achieve cost cuts that will help pay for last year's $52 billion purchase of Anheuser-Busch.

Those efforts are crucial to help AB InBev pay down its debt - about EUR40 billion, most of it taken on last year to buy Anheuser - and minimize its substantial interest payments.

Cost-reductions achieved through synergies, at least over the next three years, provided the main financial logic behind the merger. The strategy plays to the strengths of AB InBev's executives, who are known - and sometimes feared - for their rigor on costs.

With 25% of the global brewing market - including major brands such as Budweiser, Skol and Stella Artois - AB InBev is expected to wield new power over suppliers, on its way to cutting a promised $2.25 billion in annual costs by 2011.

The brewer said ...More Info

Romanian Competition Authority authorized the takeover of local brewer Bere Azuga by Ursus Breweries, part of international group SABMiller, Mediafax cited a statement by Ursus on April, 16.

The company also announced that Bere Azuga shareholders elected a new Board of Directors, formed of general manager of Ursus Breweries, Stephan Maria Weber (president), Andrei Haret (member) and Andries de Groen (member).

SABMiller announced end-January its local subsidiary Ursus Breweries has acquired a 70.56% stake in Bere Azuga, in a 30.3 million lei (EUR1 = RON4.2197) deal. According to sources, the brewer intends to purchase the remaining shares.

The brewer also said it plans to delist Bere Azura shares from Rasdaq market and launch a full takeover offer.

Bere Azuga’s former majority shareholder, Valerii Moraru, also owns a 21.35% stake through Rombas Trans International company. SABMiller owns four beer production units in Romania, through Ursus Breweries.

Bere Azuga holds only a 0.6% share of the market, however, its flagship product, the traditional beer Azuga has the potential to be developed across the country. First though, capacity – which currently stands at 400,000 hl per year – is in need of boosting. In the first three quarters of 2008, Bere Azuga posted a loss of €1.16 mln.

In ...More Info

Beer companies in Chile saw their sales rise to 600 million litres in 2008, a 5% jump from 2007, Money Week posted on April, 17 the latest figures from Chile's Beer Producer's Association.

The Association explains the result by hotter than usual summer temperatures, but also changing consumer tastes.

When people sit down after a day at work, they're beginning to prefer a cool bottle of Kunstmann Bock, a German-Chilean beer, to a glass of Casillero del Diabl.

The average Latin American drinks less than half the amount of beer per year (under 50 litres) than the average Brit. But that's changing. And this spells a real opportunity for brewers, and for investors to play the recovery in a decent economy, analysts advise.

Last year Argentina saw a 31.5% jump in beer sales, while SABMiller, the world's second largest brewer, this week reported a big jump in sales across Latin America. In Ecuador, the amount of SAB lager drunk was up 14%. And in Peru, sales rose 9%. As people's disposable incomes began to increase, they wanted to spend more money on beer.

But nowhere is this more the case than in Chile. Like Namibia and East Africa, Chile owes its beer drinking ...More Info

Aldaris, Latvia’s biggest beer maker, earned LVL 3.32 million last year, Aldaris’ Board Chairwoman Inara Sure was quoted as saying by LETA on April, 15.

In 2007, Aldaris posted LVL 6.8 million profit.

In 2008, the net turnover of Aldaris totaled LVL 36.4 million, reaching almost the same level as in year 2007, when the turnover figure was LVL 37 million.

Last year, Aldaris remained the leader among Latvian beer producers and even slightly increased its market share – to 40.6%, compared with 40.2% in 2007.

Beer sales stayed at the same level as in year 2007 – around 62.2 million litres, Ms Sure reported.

In 2008, the company's investments amounted to LVL 1.7 million.

In the first quarter of the year 2009, beer sales dropped by an average of 14% and Aldaris does not expect any growth of beverages market this year, however, the company hopes to increase even more its market share at the Latvian beer market.

"Furthermore, in 2009, we plan to widen our range of products, to raise competitiveness and introduce innovations in soft drinks production, as well as to work on improving cost efficiency," Sure said.

Aldaris was established in 1865, it is the largest brewery in Latvia and among the major ones ...More Info

Prices of malting barley of crop 2008 have dropped 50 % compared to a year ago, malt offers followed, although malting margins remained correct, industry observers communicated earlier this month.

Despite lower markets, the strong and contractually protected grain suppliers insist on correct fulfilment of their sales. Maltsters had followed a policy of back-to-back trading since their heavy speculative losses some years ago, i.e. they covered their expensive malt sales with equally expensive barley purchases. Therefore any breaches of contracts would lead to huge losses, but also to automatic arbitrations or lawsuits. Analysts appreciate that most industries have respected their obligations to-date.

In 2005/06 a relatively small overcapacity of the malt industry had led to a ruinous competition and subsequently to bankruptcies and closures of malting factories.

In 2006 beer sales worldwide started to increase at a record pace, they climbed by 11.5% till the end of 2007. Brewers, who had not seen the change of a malt oversupply to a threatening deficit early enough, found it difficult to cover their malt demand. Poor barley crops in 2006 and 2007 aggravated the supply situation. As a result, analysts noted the rebirth of good partnerships between maltsters and brewers, and the fast increasing ...More Info

China’s total malt capacity in 2008 was 4,600,000 tonnes, according to the estimates of industry observers made public at the end of last month.

The largest share of the nation’s malt capacity belongs to maltsters (4,060,000 tonnes), whereas brewers are estimated to dispose of a capacity of 540,000 tonnes of malt.

The largest Chinese maltsters by capacity are Supertime Malting (850,000 tonnes in 2008), Cofco Malting (680,000 tonnes), Longken Malting (300,000 tonnes), Qingdao Brewery (250,000 tonnes), Chunlei Malting (200,000 tonnes), Dalian Xingze Malting (180,000 tonnes), and Muogao Malting (170,000 tonnes). The majority of China’s malting companies plan to increase their capacity in the current year, it is reported.

China’s total malt consumption is estimated to have amounted to 2.9 mln metric tons in 2008.

General Administration of Customs of the People’s Republic of China, the nation’s malt exports almost doubled last year compared to 2007. The largest importers of Chinese malt are Brazil, Vietnam, South Korea, Taiwan, and Philippines.

China is expected to remain a leading malt exporter in South East Asia in the future.

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