Warsteiner Group raises output and turnover

Warsteiner admits to a 7 percent drop in draught beer volumes, some of which may have been caused by the ban on smoking.

You have to be an optimist like Albert Cramer, the owner of Warsteiner Group, to consider last year’s figures as “satisfactory“. In 2007 Warsteiner Group raised beer volumes 2.1 percent to 6.2 million hl year-on-year. Turnover was up 1.3 percent to EUR 542 million. However, this increase was achieved mainly through the acquisition of Herforder Brewery in July 2007. Otherwise, the sales of Warsteiner’s beers in Germany would have remained flat.

The Warsteiner brand has continued its seemingly interminable decline. It dropped 2 percent to 3.4 million hl. Does anybody remember out there that in the mid-1990s it sold more than 6 million hl in Germany alone? Tempi passati. Mr Cramer may console himself that the German beer market overall performed worse than his Warsteiner brewery. Average beer consumption fell 3.5 percent to 112.5 litres in 2007. But what kind of consolation is that?