Sunday, February 18, 2007

Beer: Business and Financial news

A lazy Sunday morning, allows me to surf around the internet looking for news about Beer. Beer business is a huge market, and involves some of the largest companies in the world so here is just a sampling of things that I found:

Molson Coors profits up: Of course the profits aren't up becuase they have been making better beer, or even selling more beer. Profits are up because they have decreased their costs. That would be business code for they laid off a bunch of employees. I understand working towards effieciency as that should always be the goal, but this is a bit of a wolf in sheeps clothing report to me.

New Global Beer Merger? Thats the report out of Brazil where rumors are starting hot and heavy that A-B and Belgium Brewery Giant In Bev are going to merge. These two companies are the respective leaders in revenue and volume would create by far the largest brewing company in the world. What would this mean for you the consumer? Less choice. The more merging that is done the more the big beers (even if thats Stella Artois and Hoegarden) will fill the Beer cases at your local store, and the less room there will be for your local Craft Brewery.

Miller to Launch new Beer: A beer for the Lime and Corona crowd. Miller will be introducing a new beer in certain markets, that is modeled after the Mexican Chelada, combining beer with lime and salt. A low calrorie beer that will compete against Bud Light, and Coors light. Good luck with all that as I just don't see this as a huge market for such things.

Put your Imperial stout DOWN! At least thats what will be happening in Singapore come next year. Starting January 1st of next year beers will be taxed based on their alcohol content. Beer below 5.5% will actually decrease while beer above 8.0% will increase.

No comments: