E-Malt.com Flash 20b. May 19

Vietnam & Denmark: Carlsberg joins a new strategic cooperation with Hanoi Beer Company

Danish brewing force, Carlsberg A/S, announced on May 20 it has signed a strategic agreement (Memorandum of Understanding) with the Vietnamese brewery Habeco, Hanoi Beer Company, in Hanoi. The intention is in cooperation with Habeco’s management and the Vietnamese Ministry of Industry to create a future part-nership and a joint development programme.

The partnership which will make Habeco and Carlsberg a market leader in Northern and Central Vietnam is expected to materialize in a number of areas during 2005 among which joint investment in a new brewery is the most significant.

Similar to other Eastern Asiatic countries the beer market in Vietnam is rapidly growing from a very low starting point. The actual consumption level amounts to about 13 litres per capita (compared to about 106 litres in Denmark and averagely about 80 litres per capita in the de-veloped countries in general). The future annual growth rate of beer production in Vietnam is estimated to about 8%.

The biggest breweries in Vietnam are located around the densely populated urban centres in the country. Habeco is the dominant player in the fast growing northern market. Habeco is owned directly by the Vietnamese state and is scheduled to enter into a process of privatisa-tion during which partnerships with foreign investors is encouraged. ...more info

Canada: Sleeman plans to double its market share in central Ontario

Sleeman Breweries Ltd. announced on May 18 it intends to double its market share in central Ontario within five years...more info

United Kingdom: SABMiller posted the third successive year of outstanding performance

SABMiller Plc posted on May 19 its preliminary (unaudited) results for the year to 31 March 2005. The brewing giant recorded an expected 33 % rise...more info

Peru: AmBev Peru launches the yet-to-be-named beer at weekend parties

AmBev Peru will launch its first beer in the country at a series of weekend launch parties, a company spokesman said on May 20, according to Dow Jones.

For months now, AmBev has been promoting the yet-to-be-named brew. Its introduction will inject competition to a market dominated by Union de Cervecerias Peruanas Backus & Johnston SAA, or Backus. Two launch parties will be held at a posh disco, while another will be held at a stadium, company spokesman Bruno Cosentino told reporters in an evening news conference.

Backus, controlled by Colombia's Bavaria SA, recently introduced a new lower-priced brand in preparation of the AmBev launch.

AmBev Peru entered the Peruvian market in late 2003 when it bought two plants, the right to bottle some soft drinks, and a distribution network that serves Lima and the northern part of the nation. It has spent millions to construct a new brewery on the outskirts of Lima, where it can produce a million hectoliters of beer a year or more, or about 16% of the national market.

Several land disputes delayed construction of the brewery, which was originally meant to be up and running last year. AmBev also faced challenges to its plans to use the same returnable 620-milliliter bottles that Backus uses in Peru. ...more info

Russia: Vityaz Brewery meets its new owner

Ulyanovsk-based beer maker, Vityaz Brewery, held on May 17 the shareholders’ annual meeting with the participation of the new owner of the controlling stake in the brewery...more info ...more info

Malt News

Japan: Malt imports declined in the last five years

Malt demand is declining due to economic conditions and lower sales of full malt beer. Japanese beer consumption has been falling in the last years...more info

EU: Malt sales inside EU markets

Malt sales inside EU markets at best stagnate, analysts commented. Beer sales in Western Europe were down by 3 %...more info

Barley News

China & Canada: Canada remains one of the top exporters of malting barley to China

For 2004-05, as well as 2005-06, Canada is expected to export more than 0.5 million tonnes of malting barley to China worth about C$100 million...more info

Hops News

Belgium: Poperinge - Hop Festival

Poperinge, charming hop metropolis in the southwest of West Flanders, Belgium kindly invites you to its triennial Hop and Beer Festival to be held on September 16 – 17 and 18th.

Poperinge looks forward to hosting you and remember: the next Hop and Beer Festival is only in 2008, September 21st.

Hops found their way into Poperinge through the abbey of St.-Bertin’s, St.Omer (France) as a valuable alternative for the disappearing cloth trade, consequence of a quarrel with neighbouring weaver Ypres about 1322.

The hop plant is a perennial and climbing plant, which reaches along the climbing wire a height of 7m. Its fruit, the hop cone, contains lupulin, a yellowish powder that gives beer its typical taste and which also acts as a natural preservative for our national pride: beer. Hops also found their way into decoration and the food and pharmaceutical industry as a preservative element (hops guarantee a full night’s sleep, counter the effects during the menopause ...)

Until 1964, hops were picked by hand and the harvest – traditionally in September – caused a migration to Poperinge : some 10 000 foreign hop pickers assisted the local population. The harvest had an economic dimension in a not so industrially developed area : the wages were mostly spent on buying coal for the coming winter. ...more info