At the beginning of August this year InBev announced the outsourcing of its Western European and Global Headquarters’ business systems and application services to LogicaCMG. InBev’s most recent move is a follow-up of InBev’s intention announcement from February this year to rationalise its information services. It seems that if InBev continues with outsourcing its headquarter’s staff, the only people to work at its glitzy head offices in Leuven will soon be executives and cleaners only. The brewer said that the transfer to LogicaCMG involves about 70 people and covers the countries Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, the UK & Ireland, Germany, Italy and France. All staff affected by the decision will be offered the opportunity to transfer to LogicaCMG.

Sometimes it pays not to listen to your critics. In the case of Heineken, financial analysts and other armchair strategists have complained for years that Heineken was too cautious and too tardy when it came to entering the Russian beer market. While International brewers like Baltika (jointly owned by Carlsberg and Scottish & Newcastle), SABMiller and Efes were busy securing market share, Heineken preferred to stay on the side lines watching. In a market as large and heterogeneous as the Russian, Heineken could afford to wait until the early rounds of consolidation were completed. Because being tops in St. Petersburg or Moscow does not mean you are set and done.

In a recent interview with the national media, the chairman of the Dr Oetker Group, August Oetker, best-known for custard power and frozen pizzas, admitted that he would be prepared to sell his beer business if it repeatedly missed its profit target, thus contradicting his top beer man Ulrich Kallmeyer, who has always maintained the group’s allegiance to beer.

Orbisphere 510 goes multi channel

Orbisphere electrochemical sensors are widely regarded as leaders in the field of selective gas measurement. The new Orbisphere 510 is a further enhancement to an already successful product launched in 2005. ...

Disappearing act

Two years ago, there was still talk that Actris, Germany’s tenth largest brewing and mineral water group, would team up with an international brewer. Or so they hoped. That hope never materialised as Actris was just another assortment of regional beer and water brands in both western and eastern parts of Germany, none of which had any national potential. Last year, the founder of the SAP software house, Dietmar Hopp, let it be known that he wanted to sell his beer and beverage investments which are part of the Actris Holding which he founded in 1999.....

Food Chain Centre: Brewer improves efficiency through strategic partnership

An industry leading agreement between brewer Coors Brewers Ltd and Frontier Agriculture has been strengthened as a result of a Value Chain Analysis (VCA) organised as part of the Cereals Industry Forum (CIF). The CIF project has enabled Coors and Frontier to improve planning and communication and cut the cost of production. By ‘walking the chain’, from the farm to the brewing stage, all the companies involved were able to identify areas for improvement. Jonathan Hoyland, Barley and Oat Trading Manager of leading UK arable company Frontier comments: “It is only by working more closely with our end customers that real supply chain gains can be identified and delivered, benefiting both grower and end user.”...

Excises on beer will go up 8.5 percent

The Union of Russian Brewers said in a press release on 23 May 2006 that the State Duma’s subcommittee for tax legislation backed a government-sponsored bill to amend Chapter 22 of the second part of the Tax Code and other legislation. The bill sets excise rates for 2007.

Where it hurts

The Caucasian republic of Georgia, which gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, appears to be paying a high price for its unruly ambitions to join NATO and the European Union. First Russia banned the import of Georgian fruit and vegetables, then it banned the import of Georgian wine to be followed by a threat to ban the import of Georgian mineral water. Georgia’s continuing opposition to Russian mediation (read “meddling”) in Georgia’s frozen conflicts in the breakaway republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia seems to have aggravated the conflict. ...

Alone at home

At the end of May 2006, InBev announced that it would buy out its partner Efes and purchase Efes’ remaining shares (50%) in the Interbrew Efes Brewery joint-venture which they set up in 2000. As a consequence of this transaction, InBev will gain full ownership of Interbrew Efes Brewery S.A. The price expected to be paid by InBev is approx. EUR 20.8 million. The brewery, which Efes built in Ploesti north of Bucharest in 1998 at an estimated cost of USD 70 million, was turned into a joint-venture with Interbrew only two years later. Soon after, Efes began to cede operational control of the joint-venture to Interbrew, now InBev, which is why Efes’ retreat, so to speak, was a logical next step. In 2005, InBev, by its own account, had a market share of 16..

Pass me the Stoli

In May, Pernod Ricard and FKP Soyuzplodoimport, a Russian state-owned company which owns a host of Russian spirits brands, Stolichnaya, Moskovskaya, Pertsovka, Russkaya and Zubrovka among them, have announced that they have “entered into discussions regarding the future development of a number of selected Russian spirits brands, including the Stolichnaya vodka brand.” Push aside the corporate lingo and this can only mean that Pernod Ricard is interested in buying these brands. The brands had come into its distribution portfolio through the takeover of Allied Domecq last year. At present, Stoli is produced in the cities of Tambov and Kaliningrad with Russian grain and water but then sent to Latvia for bottling and packaging.....