Obituary: Friedrich Schadeberg, senior partner of Krombacher Brewery
Few are blessed with such a long life and such a major achievement. It may have taken him several decades but Friedrich Schadeberg still managed to turn Krombacher from a village operation, doing about 50,000 hl in the early 1950s, into one of Germany’s largest privately-owned beer and beverage groups.
As can be expected from someone born shortly after World War I (in 1920), Mr Schadeberg’s life was shaped by events mainly beyond his control. Like millions of young German men, he was drafted to fight in World War II, which saw him posted to Egypt. Luckily, for him, he was already imprisoned in 1941 by British Commonwealth troupes and spent the rest of the war in a detention centre in Australia. The Australians treated their PoW well. Seeing a young man (he was only 21 then) with potential, the Australians gave him the opportunity to do a four-year law degree, which he completed.
But he did not want to stay on in Australia. Upon returning to Germany in 1946, he enrolled at the University of Weihenstephan to study brewing and obtain a degree as a brewing engineer. In those days, the German brewing industry was down on its knees. Many breweries were still in ruins or shut down by the Allies, due to a shortage of raw materials. Spending several years on the road as an itinerant brewer, which was customary then, he finally joined the Siegener Aktienbrauerei as head of sales in 1951. Unlike the brewery in nearby Krombach, the Siegener Aktienbrauerei had been partly destroyed during the war.
Nevertheless, the 1950s proved a good decade for German brewers. Thanks to millions of people migrating to Western Germany and rising incomes, average beer consumption rose from 39 litres in 1950 to 97 litres in 1960. Plenty of breweries more than doubled their output.
When Mr Schadeberg saw that Krombacher brewery was better placed to tap into this growth he joined it in 1953 as a director while buying a stake in it.
In the 1960s and 1970s beer output in Western Germany rose to its peak at 149 litres per capita in 1976. Breweries like Krombacher, which saw the benefits of branding and marketing, managed to hike output massively as they turned themselves from regional breweries into national players.
In order to differentiate itself from powerful neighbours like Warsteiner, Krombacher decided to make “nature” and “water” core values of its brand. Krombacher’s visual, an island in a blue lake surrounded by a dense forest, is iconic and known to most Germans. There is persistent urban myth that the aerial shot of the island was actually taken in New Zealand, although for decades Krombacher has insisted that it is an island in a river dam less than 20 km away from the brewery. Be it as it may, Krombacher’s unwavering embracing of “nature” has served the brand well over the decades.
Since the 1980s, Germany’s beer market has witnessed declining sales and fierce price competition. Nonetheless, Krombacher has avoided the fate of other large brewers, actually hiking output to over 6 million hl beer in 2017. Not wanting to be dependent on beer sales, whose profitability in Germany is low while advertising spending is high (Krombacher’s ad spend was around EUR 70 million/USD 79 million in 2017 according to estimates), the Schadeberg family cleverly ventured into soft drinks, which are sold at a true premium price point in Germany and are not affected by discounting as much as beer.
Already in 2006, Krombacher bought the Schweppes licence for Germany and Austria as well as the distribution rights for the Orangina brand. Krombacher’s soft drinks volumes stood at 1 million hl in 2017, boosting turnover to EUR 772 million.
Although Mr Schadeberg has long handed over management to his two children, he continued to take an active interest in the group almost to the very end.
Mr Schadeberg passed away on 26 November 2018, aged 98.
