Heineken and Bavaria promote non-alcoholic beer brands

Thailand | Two Dutch beer brands – Heineken and Bavaria – are actively promoting non-alcoholic beers to capture growth amid a stagnating beer market as consumers become more health-conscious.

In early March 2019, the two brewers announced plans to promote their non-alcoholic brands – Heineken 0.0 and Bavaria 0.0 – in Thailand’s USD 7.7 billion beer market.

Local media say that non-alcoholic beer is a category most Thais are not familiar with, given the profusion of other non-alcoholic offerings.

Heineken 0.0 was introduced in The Netherlands in 2017. It is already available in 38 markets around the world, including Singapore, the first Asian country to see its introduction.

Thailand’s beer industry has been “hit by poor consumption levels”, media report, which is another way of saying that beer consumption has flatlined since 2010 at 24 million hl, according to Statista. Per capita consumption of beer has declined to 33 litres in 2018 from 36 litres in 2010, due to more people entering legal drinking age.

As beer prices have gone up so has industry turnover, which is to reach over USD 8 billion in 2019. The premium beer segment has expanded too, to represent 6 percent of sales.

Dutch brewer Bavaria introduced its product to the Thai market seven years ago and plans to actively promote it this year.

Euromonitor says that Thailand’s domestic brewing industry is among the most consolidated in the world, with major players Boon Rawd and Thai Beverage dominating sales of locally produced beer. The strong regulation of beer production means that it is virtually impossible for smaller breweries to operate legally, and this has so far stifled the emergence of a genuine craft beer movement.