New structure

n January, the Board of Directors of Interbrew approved a three-year Long Range Plan which includes several organisational measures. They include the re-introduction of the position of the Chief Operating Officer (COO). The COO will be responsible for the international operations of Interbrew. The Board has appointed Jerry Fowden, 45, a British citizen, and formerly COO of Bass Brewers.
As of January, Interbrew will be managed via a Corporate Committee and an Operating Committee. The Corporate Committee is headed by the CEO Hugo Powell who reports to the Board.
An Operating Committee is created, chaired by the COO, which will manage all operational aspects of the different regions in which Interbrew is active. Dieter Ammer is to report to the COO..

Ad nauseam

How does the saying go? "What you see is what you get." Right. No, you don’t get desire in a bottle - just Löwenbräu beer. But it is imported. So watch out.

Prohibitionists let loose

The Ukrainian government has banned alcohol and tobacco advertising on TV and radio, in print media and on billboards, legitimating the decision with the claim that alcohol and tobacco advertising were contributing to the poor health of the nation.

Tulskoye Pivo increases production 33%

Tulskoye Pivo, a subsidiary of the St. Petersburg based Baltika Brewery, increased beer production 33% year-on-year from January to July 2001 to 2.01 million hl. According to company sources, this increase brought up Tulskoye Pivo’s share of the Russian beer market from 2.7% in 2000 to 5.3%.

Alcohol rate cut proposed

Seems like the government is finally seeing sense. After years of futile attempts at clamping down on illegal cross border trade in booze, the Norwegian government has proposed plans to cut taxes on alcohol. These plans provide for a 15 percent reduction of duty on spirits and a 5 percent tax break on wine and beer.

Heineken expects 12 percent profit growth

On the condition that there was no major deterioration in international affairs, Heineken expects full year net profit before exceptionals to be at least 12 percent higher than last year’s 621 million Euro. This estimate is based on modest autonomous growth in sales volume, an improvement in the sales mix, a positive effect of exchange rates and the positive result of the first-time consolidation of certain subsidiaries.

What’s new

Reform of the UK’s antiquated pub licensing law will be delayed by at least another two years. The first hint came when Tony Blair’s government failed to include the proposal in the Queen’s Speech. The minister for tourism, Dr Kim Howells, has since admitted that a Bill has not even been drafted. Therefore the Queen’s Speech 2003 will be the earliest date for the reform to get a look in. Proposals include the automatic right to a 1am closing time and the transfer of licensing control from magistrates to local authorities. Especially the latter proposal has received loud opposition from pub retailer J D Wetherspoon and the Kent brewer Shepheard Neame. They fear even greater planning hurdles should the government press ahead with this proposal.

Interbrew buys stake in Union Breweries

In October Interbrew entered a strategic partnership with Slovenia’s second largest brewer, Union Breweries. Initially, Interbrew acquired a 21 percent stake in the brewer which controls more than 40 percent of the Slovenian beer market. Both parties agreed that Interbrew would promote the Union brand outside Slovenia.
Soon after, Slovenia’s largest brewer, Pivovarna Lasko, announced that it would outbid Interbrew for its competitor. In July Lasko bought a 25 percent stake in Union Breweries but failed to forge a partnership that would improve the two brewers’ market share throughout former Yugoslavia. Therefore, in November, Interbrew filed a notification with the relevant authorities to launch a public tender offer for all remaining outstanding shares of Union Breweries..

Mix, shake and roll out

Having accustomed ourselves to all those downward pointing arrows - beer consumption going down, beer output going down, number of breweries going down - we never thought that in Germany we would see an upwards pointing arrow again. But lo and behold, there is a positive trend worthwhile entioning: beer mixes are up.
Admittedly, 2 million hl (estimates for 2001) are not much volume to write home about. But it’s a start. Never mind that as a product category beer mixes are old hat. Any publican could do them. All it took was to pour some beer and lemonade into a glass. Even as a packaged product beer mixes have been round for some years now. However, it was only at this year’s anuga, the world’s fair for the food industry, in Cologne, that German brewers declared beer mixes "V trendy".

Aying brewery to conduct regional audit

Protecting the environment and adhering to the principles of sustainability - that is what managing the 90.000 hl brewery at Aying to the southeast of Munich is all about. Perhaps this is also the reason why its owner, Franz Inselkammer, is the first German brewer to initiate a regional audit of his business. He wanted to find out in empirical terms what it means to be a regional brewer.
Since the 1992 Rio Conference and its Agenda 21, we know that sustainability unites economic, social and environmental issues. Aying’s regional audit, which was completed in October, shows that 82% of ist raw materials and utilities are sourced locally, 17,5% in Bavaria. Only 0.5 percent originate in the rest of Germany. Ecologically speaking, Aying is very much focussed on the region south of Munich.