Molson Coors buys 300-year-old cider maker Aspall
After twelve months of negotiations, Molson Coors announced on 8 January 2018 that it has bought Aspall, the British cider brand founded in Suffolk in 1728 by Clement Chevallier. The firm, which is still run by family members, had an enterprise value in excess of GBP 40 million (USD 55 million), it was reported.
The Morning Advertiser publication says that the Chevallier family had invested all they could in the business, including taking out loans, but they were unable to continue the growth of the company without shouldering significant financial risk.
Aspall cider is considered an aspirational brand and of good quality. It’s sold in Waitrose and other upmarket shops and is marketed as being very food friendly. The drinks writer Pete Brown ranked Aspall’s Premier Cru Cyder seven percent among the ten best ciders to drink over the summer 2017. A 500 ml bottle sells for about GBP 2.00 (USD 2.70).
Molson Coors makes a number of well-known beer brands, including Miller Genuine Draft and Britain’s best-selling beer, Carling. The company is allegedly the number two brewer in the UK and operates three breweries at Burton-upon-Trent, Tadcaster and Burtonwood, as well as one brewery in Cork, Ireland. It bought Cornwall-based Sharp’s brewery for GBP 20 million (USD 31 million) in 2011.
Molson Coors said it aims to develop Aspall into the UK’s top-selling premium cider brand and will invest GBP seven million (USD 9.5 million) over the next few years to boost production and sales. The Chevallier family will continue to play a role in the company’s future.
The brewer will also acquire Aspall’s organic cider vinegar range, which it says is made using a fermentation process that is unique in the world.
The UK currently accounts for almost half of the global cider market, according to the National Association of Cider Makers.
Volume sales of cider have gone up in leaps and bounds since 1970. Then Brits consumed about 1.5 million hl cider. In 2010 that figure stood at ten million hl but dropped to about seven million hl in 2014 according to data from the National Association of Cider Makers.
Warm weather at the beginning of the summer helped propel annual cider sales (until July 2017) above the GBP one billion (USD 1.37 billion) threshold for the first time since 2014, said Nielsen, with sales between the middle of May and middle of July, alone, increasing by 16 percent year-on-year.
Cider brands experiencing particularly strong growth across the year included Thatchers (+44%), Kopparberg (+21%) and Rekorderlig (+17%). Strongbow, owned by Heineken, remains the biggest in the sector, with a 28 percent market share.
However, analysts warned that the industry has a lot of work to do to make the category more popular outside the “BBQ season”.
Cider sales in the UK 1969 – 2014 (million hl)
