Beer sales boom

An agreement whereby Lion Nathan will undertake the Australian distribution of the Budweiser range of products from later this year has been reached with AB-InBev. The agreement adds to existing arrangements between the companies going back over 20 years and includes a provision for local brewing of Budweiser as demand grows.

Lion Nathan began distributing Becks in 2001 and commenced brewing it locally in 2004. For the past several years Budweiser has been distributed by Premium Beverages, a subsidiary of privately-owned Coopers Brewery which also planned to move to local brewing when appropriate.