Softly, softly

Perhaps they have discovered a new, soft approach to product launches. Very quietly and without major advertising in print, South African Breweries launched Sterling Light Lager in the market. Using imported crystal malt, SAB’s product developers have created a full tasting lager, low in both alcohol (2.5% Alc/Vol) and kilojoules (130kJ/100ml). Or so they claim. In any case, Sterling Light Lager has been designed to take on Namibian Breweries’ Windhoek Light which has established a strong niche in the premium segment. SAB’s Sterling Light Lager comes in a pack of four bottles - a first for the South African market place. It also carries the Heart Foundation logo, having met with their requirements for endorsement..

Not for the faint-hearted

Brewers in Nigeria have seen many days of boom and bust. But since Nigeria returned to civilian rule in 1999 for the first time in 15 years, things have steadily looked up for the country’s once depressed breweries, with sales and profits going up despite the introduction of strict Islamic law in the Northern states. With an estimated population of 123 million people, Nigeria is Africa’s most populous country and potentially a huge consumer market - if it were not for innumerable problems.0 million hl of beer sold in 2001.
Since 1999 beer sales have grown according to Nigerian Breweries’ spokesperson Vivian Nkern. Nigerian Breweries’ sales have risen fourfold since 1999, from 1.0 million hl to 4.0 million hl a year, he was quoted as saying. At Guinness there is a similar picture..

And yet another quiet deal in the bar

In an effort to get out of an infight with its former competitor and now partner Castel Group, Cerveias de Moçambique (CDM), 78 per cent owned by South African Breweries (SAB), announced that it was purchasing the controlling interest and management control of Laurentina Brewery from BIH.
The Laurentina Brewery was considered bankrupt. Brasseries International Holdings (BIH), a subsidiary of France’s Castel Group and stakeholder in Laurentina, has decided to pull out of Mozambique as the market of 19 million people with a beer consumption of 1 million hl in 2000 was not big enough to support two brewers. The deal, which has government approval, will avoid financial loss being sustained by all stakeholders.5 %), SPI (5,4 %) and the government (2 %)..

A quiet deal in the bar

South African Breweries (SAB) on 15 May 2002 closed down its brewery in Kenya and bought a 20 per cent stake in rival Kenya Breweries Ltd (KBL), owned by UK brewing giant Guinness/Diageo.
The reason for the shut down? Falling sales. In exchange, East African Breweries (Guinness) will shut its $30m brewery it built in Moshi, Tanzania and acquire 20 per cent of Tanzania Breweries, where SAB has a majority shareholding.
Some 200 Kenyans employed at SAB’s brewery which made Castle lager and several other brands in the central town of Thika close to Nairobi, have been laid off and another 600
in the company’s distribution chain are likely to loose their jobs too.
Actually, Kenya’s beer market has witnessed a massive decline to about 2.4 million hectolitres from 3..

Bumper wine harvest

While most South Africans were complaining about the unseasonable cold weather in October, wine growers were rubbing their hands with joy. The rain and cool weather have contributed to favourable ripening conditions. Wine producers are expecting a better vintage in terms of quality than in recent years. The estimated 2002 crop is 1.1 million tons and similar to the volume harvested last year.

Just smile

At the Oktoberfest (where else?) visitors were seen sporting T-Shirts saying: "If you want to make love to me, don’t talk. Just smile." A mass or two of beer later it probably did not really matter who made the first move and whether a word was spoken. If a serious hanky-panky is your objective - don’t bother about retracing the course of events. Interpretations will vary greatly.
Sometimes business seems to imitate life. See the unconfirmed speculations about SAB being involved in mergers with other brewers. While in South Africa SAB claims that it has an unwanted suitor in the shape of Miller, people familiar with the situation in London claim that SAB is weighing up a possible merger with U.S. brewer Miller to create the world’s number two beer maker. Let’s wait ...

The cruellest curse Brewers in Africa and the AIDS tragedy

Paralytic governments, empty coffers, cultural taboos - the extent of the HIV/AIDS pandemic has left many observers speechless, hopeless and helpless. Now the battle against HIV/AIDS seems to have picked up speed. More and more African businesses enter public-private partnerships to combat the disease among their employees and their families.

Africa - which image springs to mind? One of elegant bungalows in the middle of huge plantations, of fair ladies and their dashing suitors sipping sundowners while attentive black servants hover in the background? Then you know your Hemingway and your Hollywood. If you think natural catastrophes, murder and mass killings, famines and scourges, corruption, poverty and despair, you must be watching a lot of CNN.
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Gentlemen prefer blondes

But Tom gets the brunette. Never mind that he is cross-eyed, verbally challenged, undersized and feline. "Bacardi Breezer"’s international campaign, featuring a swaggering grey tomcat by the name of Tom who shames his two-legged non-feline competitors into insignificance when it comes to scoring with girls, has taken South Africa by storm.
Perhaps the campaign’s success was helped by the fact that its three TV ads - developed in the UK and shot in Prague - were also shown on the 24 hour "Big Brother" programme which had audiences in South Africa glued to the box for weeks. "Playful Freedom" - that’s the theme of the ads and that’s what Big Brother is all about.
In the UK, Bacardi Breezer sells 170 million bottles annually..

SAB spends US$2.5 million on corporate social investments

There is more to the much-flaunted notion of corporate citizenship than the “triple bottom line” approach which compels companies to embrace social, economic and environmental issues. Each year, millions of dollars are funnelled into so-called public-private partnerships between a company and a community utilising the company’s resources.
Companies do not view their corporate social investment projects as purely philantrophic. Certainly not in emerging markets. One reason for these investment projects is that the poor do not make good consumers or investors, another reason is that the uneducated do not make good employees.
SAB has been involved in social investment programmes since the mid 1990s. SAB’s Enterprise Development Department invested US$2.5 million in 2001..

Focus on new plants: SAB Ibhayi Brewery State-of-the-art line equipment for Port Elizabeth

SAB - these three letters are familiar not only to trade insiders. Famous worldwide in the meantime: SAB stands for South African Breweries. SAB has done quite a lot to achieve worldwide popularity. The news that 98 percent of South Africa’s beer consumption is attributed to SAB products was not enough.

Even if no other brewery group can make this claim on its home ground. Rather, it was the international strategy pursued with all consequences by the brewery, with its 56 million hl per year output the third largest in the meantime, that contributed to SAB’s high degree of familiarity worldwide. At the end of the Apartheid era, SAB expanded above all to black Africa. Yet this was not enough, in 1995/96 SAB invested heavily in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe.
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