Global Forces and the European Brewing Industry

The drive against drunken driving and binge drinking has helped shift sales from the 'on-trade' (beer consumed on the premises, as in pubs or restaurants) to the off -trade (retail). Worldwide, the off-trade increased from 63 per cent of volume in 2000 to 66 per cent in 2005. The off-trade is increasingly dominated by large supermarket chains such as Tesco or Carrefour, which often use cut-price offers on beer in order to lure people into their shops. More than one-fifth of beer volume is now sold through supermarkets. German retailers such as Aldi and Lidl have had considerable success with their own 'private-label' (rather than brewery-branded) beers. However, although on-trade volumes are falling in Europe, the sales values are rising, as brewers introduce higher-priced premium products such as extra-cold lagers or fruit-flavoured beers. On the other hand, a good deal of this increasing demand for premium products is being satisfied by the import of apparently exotic beers from overseas (see Table 2).
Brewers' main purchasing costs are packaging (accounting for around half of non-labour costs), raw material such as barley, and energy. The European packaging industry is highly concentrated, dominated by international companies such as Crown in cans and Owens-Illinois in glass bottles. During 2006, Dutch brewer Heineken complained of an 11 per cent rise in packaging costs.
Global forces and the European brewing industry
Mike Blee and Richard Whittington
This case is centered on the European brewing industry and examines how the increasingly competitive pressure of operating within global markets is causing consolidation through acquisitions, alliances and closures within the industry. This has resulted in the growth of the brewers' reliance upon super brands.
In the first decade of the twenty-first century, European brewers faced a surprising paradox. The traditional centre of the beer industry worldwide, and still the largest regional market, Europe, was