Fare thee well

The day after Christmas 2005 InBev announced the departure of its CEO John Brock (57). As his successor InBev introduced the Brazilian Carlos Brito (45), who to date had been InBev’s Zone President North-America.

The Lords of the aisles

The UK’s biggest supermarkets seem to be engaged in vicious price wars, like their counterparts across Europe, in a bid to increase or maintain market share. The “Big Four” chains are Tesco with a market share of 29.8 percent, followed by Asda (owned by Wal-Mart) with 16.5 percent, Sainsbury’s with 15.8 percent and Morrisons with 11.8 percent as of April this year according to research group TNS. In this battle for market share there are no holds barred. Recently the Advertising Standards Authority ordered Asda to stop claiming to be the cheapest supermarket in the UK following a complaint by Tesco.

Heineken’s dilemma

For more than a year now, Heineken Italia has been looking for a buyer for its Pedavena brewery. But in vain. Birreria Pedavena, which was founded in 1897 near the foothills of the Dolomite Alps, has been part of Heineken’s Italian group of breweries since 1974. Until last year, Heineken used to brew its speciality beers at Pedavena. However, in order to cut costs, Heineken decided to close down the brewery at the end of 2004. Unfortunately, finding the right buyer has proven difficult as Heineken did not want to sell the plant to a competitor – potential or otherwise. So far, three brewers have been named as interested parties: Italian brewers Castello and Tarricone, both privately owned, and the Swedish brewer Kopparberg.

Perverse logics

During the first half of 2005 German beer sales in volume grew 0.3 percent. However, when it comes to money – well, in value terms the market declined 2.5 percent over the same period in 2004. As the chart shows, it was not only the beer sales in the discount segment that grew, the discount chains themselves increased their share of total beer sales to 18 percent. The other multiple retailers retaliated in kind by revving up their beer promotions so that the share of beer sales through promotions rose to 17 percent – the highest in recent years.

How to get ahead in advertising

To those budding Coppolas and Scorseses, the König Ludwig Schloßbrauerei Kaltenberg, owned by His Royal Highness Prince Luitpold of Bavaria, will award a prize for the best beer commercial produced by film students. The award, the König Ludwig Trophy, will be presented to the winner on the occasion of the Munich International Film School Festival to be held in November this year. The König Ludwig Schloßbrauerei Kaltenberg has been a generous sponsor of the festival for many years.

The Kozel position

The rollout of SABMiller’s Kozel 11 Medium started this June. Beginning with the on-trade, the new beer has targeted regions where Drinks Union and the above breweries are strong.

One degree better than the rest

In 2002, however, Drinks Union brought back the degree. Drinks Union, a group of regional breweries, made a concerted push onto the national supermarket shelves with a “one degree better” media campaign.

Put it up to Eleven

The Czech beer market has started looking like Spinal Tap, the 1984 mock “rockumentary” about an aging heavy metal band on the verge of spontaneous combustion, writes Lyle Frink from Prague. In the movie, the rock star Nigel points out that the settings on the amplifier could extend beyond the standard 10 mark. Nigel: “Most blokes will be playing at 10. You’re on 10, all the way up, all the way up ... Where can you go from there? Nowhere. What we do is, if we need that extra push over the cliff ... Eleven. One louder.”

More job cuts

Soon they will have to put out the “office space for rent” signs. If InBev is going to push ahead with further restructuring programmes at its glitzy and spanking new Leuven headquarters, they might have to start looking around for new tenants. Having already outsourced the IT department, InBev announced in October that an “effectiveness study” of structures and processes in its global headquarters recommends further job reductions. In best management speak, “the proposed organization aims to create clear responsibilities and to eliminate overlapping or duplicated processes and activities across functions, as well as across Zones and GHQ, taking into account the right match of employee profiles with the new organizational requirements..

Who’s afraid of the WHO?

German brewers have at last woken up to the fact that the World Health Organisation’s plan to reduce the worldwide consumption of alcohol by 20 percent over the next ten years might also pose a threat to their business. Although many of them must have been aware that dark clouds were gathering over their heads, attempts to reduce alcohol abuse so far have been scarce and few in between – at least if compared with what brewers in other countries have done so far. ...