SABMiller to step up craft beer production
SABMiller, the world’s second-largest brewer by sales, is making an “intense” effort to ramp up its share of the US premium beer market, where it has been caught on the hop by the explosion of local high-price craft beers.
Alan Clark, chief executive, said in an interview that the producer of Miller Lite, Foster’s and Peroni is aiming for a market share “well north” of 20 per cent of the value of US premium beer market, from 14 per cent currently.
“We’ve got to shift our portfolio to premium. That’s clearly a priority that the team now understand and are working on it,” he said of the “intense activity” within MillerCoors, the group’s US joint venture. He gave no timeframe for the increase.
While one-third of beer volumes sold in the US is of premium beer, that category accounted for only 8 per cent of SABMiller’s sales.
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Over the past 18 months, the group, which trails larger global rival Anheuser-Busch InBev in the US market, has launched a range of new varieties and brands, including Leinenkugel’s Summer Shandy, Batch 19, Third Shift and Blue Moon seasonal beers, and acquired Crispin Cider as a super premium cider.
Brewers are facing a slow decline in mature markets, such as the US and Europe where beer sales have been losing out to soft drinks and bottled water. Critics say this is partly because the big brewers have not been creative enough, leaving local craft brewers to step into the vacuum and gulp down 12 per cent of the market.
“Let’s take the criticism, that the scale brewers have been slow to innovate and to bring exciting, fresh and new brews. That’s probably correct,” said Mr Clark. “The reality, though, is we’ve recognised that and we’re moving very quickly.”
He said the largest craft beer in the US – Blue Moon Belgian White – “is ours” and that 25 per cent of last year’s growth in the US craft industry came from SABMiller brands.
However, the Brewers Association, the Colorado-based craft brewers trade body, has criticised multinational brewers, claiming they seek “to blur the lines between their crafty, craft-like beers and true craft beers from today’s small and independent brewers”.