Kenya | East African Breweries (EABL), which is majority-owned by drinks company Diageo, will start producing Diageo’s rum brand Captain Morgan locally as part of wider investments in its spirit business in response to growing demand.
Congo | It may be strange that in a country like the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), which has been ravaged by wars almost incessantly since it gained independence from Belgium in 1960, brewers continue to thrive. But this is the case. In 2016, the country’s two brewing groups managed to brew an estimated 4.6 million hl beer, according to the Barth Report.
Every little step counts. In an effort to balance its carbon emissions, the South African craft brewer Darling Brew, located in the village of Darling about 70 km north of Cape Town, is aiming to offset a total of 688 tons of CO2 over the next year of production. This will be equivalent to the elimination of the same amount of carbon from the environment as that achieved by growing 17,000 tree seedlings for ten years.
The plight of beer girls in Asia and Africa is well-known but according to campaigners very little has been done to protect them from harassment.
South Africa was one of the star performers in AB-InBev’s global empire in 2017, where the local unit lifted margins by an impressive 600 basis points, enabling the company to report a 21.1 percent hike in EBITDA on a beer revenue increase of just six percent, even as the brewer had to deal with the effects of a crippling drought at its Newlands brewery in Cape Town.
Heineken is beating AB-InBev at their game, at least in South Africa. In early February 2018 the Dutch brewer bought a minority stake in craft brewer Jack Black from Cape Town. No financial details are known. According to estimates, Black Jack sold about 20,000 hl beer last year.
As Budweiser is the official sponsor of the next Football World Cup and Nigeria will take part in the tournament, AB-InBev will do the logical thing and start brewing the beer domestically as of 2018, it was reported on 23 November 2017.
Africa’s number one oil producing nation, Nigeria, has seen its economy getting hammered by weak crude prices. The country’s brewers have been affected too.
Ethiopia’s Trade Competition & Consumers Protection Authority has denounced the country’s brewers for over-pricing their products following the Birr devaluation. This was reported on 7 November 2017. The price of beer in rural areas started to increase after the Birr was devaluated 15 percent in early October 2017 to boost exports (eg coffee, oil seeds and flowers).
AB-InBev seems to have big plans for Africa as it will invest between USD 150 million and USD 200 million in two new production lines in South Africa this year.