E-Malt.com News article: 3254

UK: The outstanding weather helped the UK Beer Market to perform very positively during 2003. According to a brand new report from leading beverage industry analysts Canadean, temperatures recorded were significantly higher than the long term average in eight months of the year. This, coupled with major sporting events such as the Rugby World Cup, certainly helped to fuel home consumption and off-premise sales.

Off-premise sales have grown strongly in recent years, increasing their share of total Beer volumes by more than five percentage points since 1999. This trend could be accelerated further if the Government eventually bows to the increasing calls to ban smoking in public places, a move that would surely affect on-premise sales. Furthermore, the size and importance of the off-premise channel is now such that brewers simply cannot afford any mistakes in their pricing strategies if they are to take full advantage of major promotional periods and maintain overall sales performance.

Lager was the only Mainstream Beer segment to grow in 2003 with consumption of both Draught and Packaged derivatives increasing healthily. Mainstream Lager has been heavily supported by the producers as they look to protect their major brands. Premium Lagers also advanced but the fact that they could still improve underlines the resilience of the Mainstream sector. A number of low carbohydrate brands were launched in 2003 and these look set to become an important future component of Premium Lager.

There were mixed fortunes for Stout with Draught consumption declining by more than 6% whilst Can volumes grew strongly. However, this may have been an exceptional result and the negative underlying trend could well return. The popularity of darker Beers such as Bitter, Mild and Brown Ale also continues to diminish as they increasingly take a back seat to Lager.

For the first time in a number of years, there now appears to be growing confidence in the market's medium term prospects. There is a general consensus within the industry that after a number of difficult years, consumption is ready to stabilize or even grow modestly. The FAB market, which has been in direct competition with Premium Lager is now in decline presenting an opportunity for Beer to win back valuable lost customers. Overall, 2004 is expected to be another productive year with consumption likely to match that seen in 2003.


15 September, 2004