Beer is flowing abroad – Kommersant

Large brewing companies are looking for ways to increase capacity utilization in the face of a reduced portfolio of licensed brands and declining sales in Russia. Thus, AB InBev Efes began bottling beer for the Belarusian market, probably under a contract with Eurotorg, the country’s largest retail operator. This, according to experts, will allow you to get a guarantee of sales without investing in marketing, but the margin will be lower than from sales of your own brands.

AB InBev Efes will start producing Grossberg beer, the rights to which are owned by Eurotorg, the manager of the largest Belarusian grocery chain Euroopt. This follows from the data of Rosaccreditation and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). The production sites in the declaration for the product are the AB InBev Efes plants in Klin and Kaluga with a capacity of 30 million decaliters and 55 million decaliters, respectively.

Eurotorg did not comment on the deal with AB InBev Efes. Marketing Director of AB InBev Efes Maria Dementyeva specified that Grossberg beer is produced for export to Belarus and will be available for sale in the summer. The planned volume of production is not specified. As Ms. Dementyeva noted, the company is already producing Polar Bear beer for China in a 1.5-liter bottle and is considering launching a new packaging format for the Knight of Primorye and Gold Mine Beer brands in China.

Kommersant’s interlocutors in the market note that the production of beer under private label for the foreign market should allow additional loading of capacities. After the outbreak of hostilities in Ukraine, the Belgian AB InBev, the owner of a non-controlling stake in AB InBev Efes, announced plans to sell the stake to a partner, Turkey’s Anadolu Efes, which could result in the termination of AB InBev Efes’ license for some global brands, including Bud. In the fall of 2022, it became known that AB InBev Efes had suspended the production of Leffe beer.

At the end of the first quarter of 2023, AB InBev Efes reported a decline in performance, noting economic instability. According to Rosalkogolregulirovanie, retail sales of beer in Russia in January-March 2023 decreased by 3.5%, to 164.5 million deciliters year-on-year.

Baltika and Heineken United Breweries did not provide any comments. MPBK Ochakovo said that they previously produced beer under a separate sub-brand for Asian countries, but abandoned this practice.

In Belarus, according to Belstat, retail beer sales in the first quarter of 2023 decreased by 3%, to 8.5 million deciliters year-on-year, of which over 84% were local products. But, as Igor Khavsky, co-owner of the SWAM Group distributor and the Gletcher brewery, explains, the release of beer under private label allows you to get sales guarantees of a certain volume and frees you from the need to promote products. Given the availability of spare capacity, this could be an interesting project, although margins would be lower than from sales of own brands, he notes.

One of Kommersant’s sources believes that the economy of large Belarusian brewers may be worse than that of Russian ones, which can produce large volumes cheaper. AB InBev Efes offered Eurotorg the best conditions, independent expert Alexei Nebolsin does not rule out.

Nikolai Zhelagin, founder of the Beru Vykhodny chain of beer stores, says that in October-November, many Russian brewers noted a drop in sales, which may be due to savings and consumer pessimism. The possibilities for import substitution from Russian companies, he notes, have already been exhausted, and supplies of a number of foreign brands have also recovered.

Anatoly Kostyrev