Someone has seen the light
Looks like InBev will soon re-open the Hoegaarden brewery which it closed two years ago.
One of these days the Hoegaarden brewery story will become a textbook example of the erroneous nature of strict figure-mindedness. Tradition, story, brand, aura - all of Hoegaarden’s non-budgetable values were blown into the wind by InBev’s management when it took the decision a few years ago to "partially close" (their words!) the Hoegaarden brewery. Perhaps it made a difference of +0.002 percentage points to InBev’s bottom line to have production of the famous wit beer shipped to the Jupille brewery near Liège and sack a few hundred workers. One can just imagine InBev’s accountants rubbing their hands together - expecting nods of approval from the bankers for their fine deed. But, lo and behold, the public would have none of it. They protested. Loud and clearly. In the streets and on the web.
The closure of the Hoegaarden brewery had been on the cards ever since, well, ever since the Brazilians decided to make their Brahma beer one of InBev’s global brands. InBev’s annual report 2005 bears witness to this. The place where for years Hoegaarden had stood next to Leffe, Beck’s and Stella Artois, had suddenly been taken over by Brahma. "Oh, oh", many readers will have thought: "That’s a sign!" And a sign it was. Once the Hoegaarden brand had been demoted, it was only a matter of time before its brewery would have to go too. The Hoegaarden brand itself, compared with Brahma, may be small. Only 700,000 hl per year are sold the world over. But it must have been a nice little earner and a headache to those who had to brew it at InBev’s gigantic Jupille brewery.
In the end, it was a combination of internal grumblings and external protests which reverberated in Leuven’s corridors of power. InBev’s Brazilian executives eventually saw the error of their ways and allocated some EUR 60 million for the refurbishment of the Hoegaarden brewery.
Will they also throw a grand party for the re-opening of the Hoegaarden brewery on 1 June 2008? That must be doubted.
