Doing the beer shelf shuffle

With double-digit sales gains and an expanding consumer base, craft beers are popping up everywhere. Supermarkets, big-box chains and convenience stores are giving more shelf space and attention to the category. But how much more space can craft beer get? Behind the scenes there is already a tug-of-war between the Big Brewers defending their territory and the small brewers trying to shoulder in.

On October 13, 2014, Symrise opened an extraction facility for vanilla and is thus taking another important step in sustainable vanilla production in Madagascar. The investment at the Benavony site amounted to approximately EUR 3 million. With the plant, every step in the processing of vanilla can now be performed locally on the East African island for the first time.

It was not quite as brief as a twitter tweet but it must have been one of the shortest of press releases imaginable: all it said was that SABMiller, the second largest brewer in the world, and Grupo Petropolis, the second largest brewer in Brazil, on 1 October 2014 announced an agreement to jointly explore the distribution of select SABMiller brands in the Brazilian market in the coming years.

After Berlin, it’s Richmond, Virginia. U.S. media reported on 8 October 2014 that California craft brewer Stone, which ranks 10th on the nation’s list of biggest craft brewers, has finally found an East Coast spot for its next brewery venture in Richmond, a town 150 km south of Washington, DC.

Constellation Brands, a major wine and beer company, will acquire a glass production plant in Nava, Mexico for USD 300 million from AB-InBev, pending approval from regulators. This was reported on 2 October 2014.

If the rumoured figures are true, Dean Metropoulos, the private equity tycoon, made a killing when he sold the Pabst Brewing Company (PBC) to the Russian beverage company Oasis for USD 700 million (EUR 560 million) in cash.

get from beverages by 20 percent until 2025 by marketing smaller sizes, bottled water and diet drinks. The announcement was made at the Clinton Global Initiative in New York City on 23 September 2014 and comes as the country’s three biggest soft drink makers face pressure over the role of sugary drinks in fueling obesity rates.

Growth in the consumption of carbonated packaged water in the US is expected to be much higher than the global average, finds the recently published report on "Soft Drinks Market Insights" from Canadean. The US is predicted to have one of the highest growth rates of 12% in carbonated packaged water consumption in 2014, compared to an average global growth of 1%. Data from Canadean reveals that carbonates could lose as much as five litres per person in the US in 2014 compared to 2013, whereas packaged water, both still and carbonated, is expected to gain over three litres per person. This increased demand is being driven by the steady consumer shift from carbonated soft drinks to packaged water.

A trial, conducted in Portland, OR, USA and recently reported under the title “Hide the Label, Hide the Difference?” suggested that, when tasting blind, beer drinkers were unable to distinguish between three different well-known European lager brands.

Sidel Services™ has opened a new and advanced training centre in Guadalajara, Mexico, featuring the very latest training technologies, with a virtual factory environment, augmented reality and authentic parts that trainees can handle themselves. Staffed by professional training instructors with years of beverage industry experience, who use a mix of engaging methods to educate trainees, the new centre has already welcomed representatives from beverage producers across Latin America.