The end to Old Europe’s beer woes

The most remarkable news coming out of Old Europe, courtesy of Heineken, is this: our ageing population trend seems to have stalled. Or it does seem as if our demographics are improving and beer consumption, after years of decline, has bottomed out.

Reporting on its first quarter performance on 21 April 2017, Heineken said it saw an organic rise in beer volumes of 0.5 percent in Europe and 5.4 percent in Asia Pacific.

The company said that it saw positive volume development in France, Spain, Netherlands, Italy, and Austria for the period, however in the UK, volume was down by low single digit figures “due to a partial de-listing by a large customer [aka Tesco].” Premium volumes continued to grow double digit.

This is some achievement, as it not only underlines that Europe’s growing beer volumes for Heineken in 2016 were not a one-off, it also came in a quarter (Europe’s winter) which has traditionally been slow.

Nevertheless, Heineken’s overall performance was offset slightly by declines in Africa, Middle East & Eastern Europe (-0.4 percent) and the Americas (-0.7 percent).

Overall, organic beer volume growth at the brewer was +0.6 percent for the period.

Reported net profit for the quarter was EUR 293 million (2016: EUR 265 million).