Foster's Group Ltd, Australia's largest brewer, posted on February, 16 its financial results for the half year ended 31 December 2009.

The company’s consolidated net profit dropped by 13.5% to A363 mln as compared to the same period a year ago. Total operating revenue declined by 4.7% to A$2.4 bln.

Foster’s Australian and Pacific beer business, Carlton & United Breweries (CUB), had a strong first half with EBITS up 6.6% to A$486.4 million. CUB earnings benefited from strong unit revenue growth that included a contribution from both price and mix. EBITS margins benefited from the realisation of cost savings but importantly there was an increase in first half brand investment.

CUB’s brand portfolio continues to lead the regular, premium domestic and premium imported beer categories, as well as the lower carbohydrate and flavoured beer sub-categories and in the cider category, Foster’s said citing Nielsen data.

In Australia the Carlton brand continued to outperform the beer category with net sales revenue up 12.0%. The VB brand maintained the momentum established in the second half of fiscal 2009 with net sales revenue ahead of the prior year. Pure Blonde continues to be the leader in the low carbohydrate sub-segment with growth benefiting from the launch of ...More Info

The majority of brewers in Europe, North America and Japan have reported bad results for 2009, an analysts’ report summed up on February, 1.

South America, Africa and Southeast Asia showed variable, but mostly positive results.

Where output figures were negative, the large brewing groups of the world managed anyway to show profits due to price adjustments and severe cost-cutting measures, analysts said.

Bulgaria’s beer production declined by 11% last year, initial estimates of the Czech beer output show a 10% decline (domestic sales – minus 7%, export – minus 12%). Beer production in Denmark dropped by 8% in 2009, in France – by 0.8% to 14.3 mln hl. Germany last year produced less than 100 mln hl of beer for the first time in recorded history as output declined by 2.8% to 99.983 mln hl. The nation’s domestic sales declined by 2.1%, exports fell by 7.2%. UK’s beer production dropped by 4.2% in 2009, it is reported.

Russian brewers reported a 4.2% decline in output (result has been improved artificially by large December sales ahead of the tax increase in January). Ukraine’s beer output dropped by 6.2%, that of the US – by 2.2%.

Brazil is expected to report a total output of ...More Info

Anadolu Efes Biracilik & Malt Sanayii AS, Turkey’s dominant beverages company, said it spurned approaches from some of the world’s biggest beer makers amid speculation that the brewer may become a takeover target, Bloomberg reported on February, 16.

Istanbul-based Efes, one of the world’s largest independent brewers, has received approaches for all its beer operations, and separately for its Russian division, Alejandro Jimenez, president of Efes Beer Group, said in an interview.

“You would expect all the big players to look at us, but frankly we are not ready for that - that’s what we’re telling them,” Jimenez said in the company’s Istanbul headquarters. “It’s not an issue of whether we have to do it or not, it’s an issue of whether we want to. We want to remain independent.”

SABMiller Plc is among brewers that may seek to buy part or all of the company to enter the growing Turkish market or expand in Russia, analysts at UBS AG and Credit Suisse Group AG say. Efes, which accounts for about 10 percent of total beer sales in Russia, has a market value of 7.2 billion Turkish lira ($4.8 billion). The brewer is 56 percent-owned by the Ozilhan and Yazici families, which founded ...More Info

United Breweries Ltd, India's largest brewer, expects to sell 120 million cases of beer in 2010/11 driven by its new marketing arrangement with Heineken, a senior official was quoted as saying by Reuters on February, 15.

This will show a rise of 20 percent from 100 million cases the company aims to sell in the current fiscal year ending March, and compared with 83 million last year.

In 2008, Heineken acquired 37.5 percent stake in United Breweries following a worldwide takeover of Scottish & Newcastle (S&N), the UB Group's equal joint venture partner in UBL.

Last year Hieneken, the world's No. 3 brewer, agreed on a deal to brew and sell its own beer brand in India.

The Dutch brewer's brands "Tiger" and "Cannon" will also now be brewed in India and sold, S.S. Sheikhawat, senior vice president marketing at United Breweries, said.

In a complicated series of transactions that will bring a one-off gain and trim its debt, Heineken had said in December it would buy APB India from Asia Pacific Breweries Ltd, its own joint venture with Fraser and Neave, and transfer it to United Breweries.

The beer market in India, estimated at 190 million cases, is growing by 12-14 percent annually, Sheikhawat said.

Pacific Beverages, the joint venture between Coca-Cola Amatil and SABMiller, continued to invest in building consumer preference for its brands and growing its market share of the Australian premium alcoholic beverages market in the financial year ended 31 December 2009, Coca-Cola Amatil (CCA) reported on February, 17.

Pacific Beverages’ beer brands delivered strong volume growth of almost 50% for the year, and now account for over 9% of the Australian premium packaged beer market by volume and value, the parent company said.

The flagship Peroni brand, comprising Peroni Nastro Azzurro and Peroni Leggera, achieved strong volume growth of 75% due to increased availability, the successful launch of Peroni Leggera in March and the launch of Peroni draught in August in a number of select, licensed on-premise outlets in Sydney and Melbourne. Peroni Nastro Azzurro is now firmly positioned in the Top 10 premium beers in Australia6 and Pacific Beverages expects to further expand the availability of Peroni in 2010.

Bluetongue, Pacific Beverages’ major Australian premium beer brand, delivered strong volume growth of over 40% as a result of increased availability, the company said.

The $120 million Bluetongue Brewery in NSW is due to be commissioned during May and will provide Pacific Beverages with a ...More Info

European beers have suffered as their American, Mexican and Australian rivals have increased their “brand value”, Brand Finance said in its latest survey of the world’s 500 most valuable brands.

Budweiser, Corona and Foster’s have moved closer to the top of the brand value list, at the expense of Heineken, Amstel and Stella Artois.

US beer Budweiser now owned by the Belgium-based brewing giant AB InBev secured its position as one of the world’s 20 most valuable brands with a 27% rise in brand value and a four-place climb to 15 in the Global 500.

Bud was named as the most valuable beer brand in the world, while Heineken took second place, followed by Corona.

Budweiser is the second most valuable beverage brand overall, behind Coca-Cola.

The index is compiled by analysts who choose the world’s top 500 brands by analysing a firm’s commercial success and setting this against its popularity.

As from the beginning of the current marketing year, only 0.4 mln tonnes of barley were licensed for export versus 2.9 mln tonnes in the same period in 2008/09 and 3.1 mln tonnes in 2007/08, FranceAgriMer posted on February, 10.

European farmers prefer to offer their barley crop into intervention stocks. After a certain slowdown in December, offers into intervention increased again in mid January, FranceAgriMer said.

As at January 31, 3.1 mln tonnes of barley were offered in intervention in the EU, of which 1 mln tonnes in Germany, 0.6 mln tonnes in France, and 0.3 mln tonne in Finland.

Australia’s barley production is estimated at 8 million tonnes in 2009-10, slightly down from the 8.3 million tonnes estimated in December, ABARE said in its latest Australian crop report posted on February, 16.

The estimate for the nations’ 2008-09 barley production is 7.7 mln tonnes, ABARE said.

In New South Wales, barley production is estimated to have fallen by around 11 per cent compared with last season, to 1.3 million tonnes in 2009-10. This reflected a reduction in yields from 1.49 tonnes a hectare in 2008-09 to an estimated 1.28 tonnes a hectare in 2009-10. The area planted to barley was 4 per cent higher in 2009-10, at around 1 million hectares.

The area planted to barley in Victoria was around 940,000 hectares in 2009-10, which is down 13 per cent from 2008-09. Despite the decline in area, barley production is estimated to have increased by 39 per cent to 1.9 million tonnes compared with the drought affected 1.4 million tonnes in 2008-09. Similarly to wheat, the heat wave and heavy rainfall in November 2009 reduced the quality and yields in the lead up to harvest with the majority of barley in the Wimmera and Western District being feed grade.

Queensland’s area planted to ...More Info

New barley crop markets will be significantly influenced by old crop stocks as well as 2010 plantings, industry experts communicated earlier this month.

Official estimates of winter barley seedings are: France – 1.26 mln ha (minus 4%), Germany – 1.34 mln ha (minus 8%). Bulgaria, Poland and Romania report unchanged acreages of winter barley.

Forecasts of spring barley plantings in the malting barley countries of West and North Europe range from unchanged (Champagne) to minus 40% (U.K., North Germany), a good average estimate at this time is minus 15 – 20%.

Markets will not be positive for farmers’ decisions, the length of winter and possible drilling dates may play a part as well. Apart from Spain, where the bulk of barley is grown for feed purposes, Northwest Europe including France, Germany and the U.K. and the Baltic Sea region are the essential production areas of the EU.

“There is such an oversupply of barley out there that we don't even see any cash bids for malting barley at this time,” Marv Zutz, executive director of the Minnesota Barley Growers Association, was quoted as saying by Farm & Ranch Guide on February, 14.

“And as far as feed barley, we have the combination of little demand and lower corn prices, which usually mean lower feed barley prices. It's not in the cards right now - so it's kind of grim out here.

“The truth is maltsters have on hand enough barley for 2010 already without having to plant this crop. There is just an overabundance of barley throughout the United States and the world,” Mr. Zutz said.

How this current oversupply situation will impact the 2010 plantings is still up in the air. Zutz figures some growers might switch some acres to soybeans, since at the current time that is one of the few crops that is showing a potential for profit in the crop budgets released for Minnesota. However, in light of the large barley stockpiles, the maltsters have offered contracts for the 2010 crop year with fairly decent price levels.

“The maltsters are trying to maintain a base of growers ...More Info

Takashi Nagamine, Takahiro Sekiwa, Emiko Yamaguchi, Mika Oozeki and Tsuneo Kato

J. Inst. Brew. 115(4), 292–295, 2009 ABSTRACT
To make an efficient and laborsaving quality selection in a malting barley breeding program, the relationship between malting quality parameters and the hardness index (HI) measured by Single Kernel Characterization System (SKCS) 4100 was studied with barley genetic resources and a group of descendant lines from “Yon Rkei 1363” that possess the high lysine allele lys1 and a very high diastatic power (DP). There was a highly significant correlation between the grain HI and the malt extract both in the genetic resources (r = –0.48**) and in the lys1 parent- derived lines (r = –0.50**). Malt HI showed a highly significant correlation with malt extract (r = –0.70** in genetic resources, r = –0.57** in the lys1 parent-derived lines) and malt total protein (r = 0.73**, 0.84**, respectively). For the selection of very high DP lines from the lys1 parent-derived group, high grain HI selection was effective as all the very high DP lines had much harder grain characteristics. Therefore SKCS was regarded as a useful tool for quality selection in malting barley breeding. Key words: Diastatic power, grain hardness, Hordeum vulgare, malt quality, SKCS.br> Load full article, 4 pages, 142kb , PDF file