Gambero Rosso – July-August 2019

(nextflipdebug5) #1
STORIES

even have their roots in the 19th century.


First we mentioned AbInbev: by their very


definition they are “the largest brewery in


the world”. It produces 31.4% of the world’s


beer (source Barth Report 2018) and has


achieved these incredible numbers merger


after merger, acquisition after acquisition:


Anheuser-Busch, an American brewery


founded in 1852 in Missouri, merged with


Inbev in 2008, itself the result of the merger


between the Belgian group Interbrew (which


in the meantime had purchased Labbat,


Canada, and Beck’s, Germany) and Ambev,


a Brazilian group born from the merger of


the country’s two largest producers, Antarc-


tica and Brahma. The final act (for now) took


place in 2016, when it also acquired what at


the time was the second world group for


beer production, Sab-Miller. Meanwhile, the


giant also reaped among the craft breweries:


in the now distant 2011 the acquisition of


one of the main actors of the American craft


revolution, Goose Island, caused a sensa-


tion; then it was the turn of 10 Barrel, Ely-


sian, Breckenridge, Four Peaks, Wicked


Weed in the USA; Camden Brewery in the


UK, Boostels in Belgium, Birra del Borgo


in Italy as we mentioned, Boxing Cat in Chi-


na and many others around the world. Obvi-


ously AbInbev is not the only giant on the


market: in second place, but very far from


the pole position, is Heineken (born in



  1. is among the world’s producers, with


its 11.2% divided between various brands


such as Amstel, Affligem, Murphy’s, and in


Italy, Dreher (already since 1974), Moretti,


Von Wuster, Prinz, Ichnusa, recently Birra


Messina, without forgetting the acquisi-


tion of an Italian craft brewery, Hibu (MB)


through the subsidiary Dibevit. Third place


is occupied by a large Chinese group, China


Resources Snow Breweries Ltd. which


produces the world’s best-selling beer,


Snow. Fourth place is held by another well-


known brand: Carlsberg (1874) known in


Italy also through the Tuborg, Grimbergen,


but above all Poretti brands. In fifth place


we find Molson Coors, a very active group


on the US and Canadian markets but which
did not miss the opportunity to acquire sev-
eral craft breweries including Trou du Di-
able in Canada and Birradamare in Italy.
The Barth Report 2018 shows a last inter-
esting fact: the top 40 brewing companies
in the ranking produce 88.3% of the world’s
beer. The rest, a small 11.7% is in the hands
of other groups or industrial breweries and
artisanal microbreweries: this is enough to
understand the marketing and marketing
strength of a multinational company that
gets to play its cards on the craft sector.

CRAFT VS. INDUSTRIAL
«The most important among the trends that
characterized the last decade of Italian craft
beer one is undoubtedly represented by the in-
vasion of the industry in the craft sector - says
Andrea Turco, creator of one of the most
popular thematic blogs, Cronache di Birra


  • the phenomenon has materialized with two
    parallel strategies: to enter the market with

Free download pdf