SABMiller plans to build a brewery in Lenin’s home town
The golden barrels (“Zolotaya Bochka”) must have been rolling steadily, helping to fund SABMiller’s new USD 170 million brewery in Russia.
At the end of March SABMiller announced that it will build a brewery outside the city of Ulyanovsk, around 1,000 km east of Moscow on the Volga river. The city which was founded as Simbirsk in the 17th century was renamed Ulyanovsk in 1924 in honor of its recently-deceased most famous son Vladimir Ulyanov. Now who is this guy? Well, to most of us he is better known by his alias Lenin, the leader of the October Revolution and the first head of the Soviet Union. He was born there in 1870.
Lenin, a teetotaller by all accounts, feared that alcohol would stand in the way of Russia moving towards communism. The irony would not be lost on Lenin that now that this grand goal has been put to rest once and for all, people can at last enjoy a beer or two and have a good time.
SABMiller’s new brewery will have an initial capacity of 3 million hl and is set to start production in early 2009.
The Ulyanovsk brewery will complement SABMiller’s first Russian brewery in Kaluga, some 180 km south-west of Moscow, which has an annual capacity of 6 million hl.
With 95 million hl of beer consumption in 2006, market researchers at Canadean rank Russia as the world’s fifth largest beer market behind China, the United States, Germany and Brazil. Along with China it is one of the world’s fastest growing.
SABMiller, whose main beer brands include Castle, Miller Lite, Peroni and Snow, is Russia’s fifth largest brewer with a market share of 6 percent, but is well behind market leader Baltic Beverages Holding (BBH) with 36 percent, InBev (17%) , Heineken (13%) and Efes (11%).
Both of SABMiller’s breweries will produce Russian brands like Zolotaya Bochka, the international brand Miller Genuine Draft and the Czech beer Velkopopovicky Kozel, which represent 3 of Russia’s top 10 premium beers.
The brewer said that in the year to March 2006 it grew volumes by 14 percent in Russia, or about twice the rate of the market.
