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Wider interest in beverages

The over 36,000 experts can look forward to the industry’s top international get-together of the year – the world market for industrial beverage filling. As always, the three turbulent days of the exhibition focus on the comprehensive range of products from the exhibiting companies. But BRAU Beviale 2007 also offers extra know-how, for example, on the hot topic of energy: from generation, purchasing, renewable energy, potential savings and recovery to emission trading. The Energy theme pavilion is organized by NürnbergMesse as part of its established cooperation with the Brewery Research and Training Institute (VLB) of Berlin.

The European Beer Star will shine again in 2007. Last year, 440 beers from all over the world entered for the coveted award, which was launched by Private Brauereien Bayern, the sponsor of the exhibition, together with the German and European federation. Visitors at the exhibition select their Consumers’ Favourite from the gold medal beers, which is then presented with the award at the BRAU Beviale Night – now changed to Thursday! On the day before BRAU Beviale (13.11), the Akademie Fresenius invites beverage producers and suppliers to the international compact seminar on “The Essence of Aseptic Filling”.

A drink in the coffee houses of Europe “Europe is essentially born of the spirit of the coffee houses,” claims philosopher and critic George Steiner (born on 23.4.1929 in Paris). For anyone searching for the roots of the “European idea”, a melange of the ideals of freedom, variety and unity, a visit to a coffee house is unavoidable. This is where people met and still meet to discuss the world situation in general and business in particular. No matter how divided and inconsistent the European map was, cafes offered a serious forum for meetings and conspiracies, intellectual debates and gossip. The “Café Central” in Vienna (opened 1860), the “Les Deux Magots” in Paris (1885), the Venetian “Caffè Florian” (1720), the “Café Slavia” in Prague (1800) and not forgetting the “Zum Arabischen Coffe Baum” in Leipzig (1711) became famous as places of political communication and “exquisite” consumption. One may regret that the European coffee houses have lost their political enlightenment function as a civil debating club and only continue to function as catering establishments… The drink lists of the cafes were a reflection of the respective beverage market over the eras. They contained all the commercially produced beverages: hot drinks, non-alcoholic drinks, beer, wine and spirits.

In this respect, cafes can directly indicate the development of beverage consumption in Europe, and this is not doing badly at all – despite the much bemoaned stagnation in the mature markets of Western Europe. Mind you, slight or even zero growth is not the same as stagnation. So a great deal of dynamic is noticeable in the individual beverage categories, in the individual segments and obviously in the individual markets, which is directly registered by BRAU Beviale as the European forum for the beverage industry.

Rapid growth of global beverage consumption
According to surveys by the British market researchers at Canadean, the consumption of commercial beverages (i.e. excluding home drinks and tap water) is highest in North America – over 600 l per head/year. Despite a comparatively low consumption of wine and spirits, the Americans have defended their leadership. They owe this not least to their consumption of carbonated drinks, which is the highest in the world. As far as consumption of hot drinks, non-alcoholic drinks, beer, wine and spirits is concerned, West and East Europeans rank in third and fourth place.

For the coming six years (until 2012), Canadean forecasts a global growth in consumption of 18 %, which will be shared by all market regions with the exception of Africa. The largest part of this growth will be attributed to non-alcoholic drinks. Companies with water in their portfolio should therefore be able to rub their hands with joy. The water segment alone will grow by over 40 % by 2012. Even the worldwide thirst for carbonated drinks is to develop positively overall, although it will decline a little in North America.

When it comes to beer, the whole world has been talking of nothing but China for some years. Despite the continuing growth of beer sales in China (2006: +9.8 %), it is the hot drinks, especially tea and tea drinks, that will decisively contribute towards the growth of commercially produced drinks in Asia in the coming years. Tea already has a share of over 30 % of total beverage consumption in Asia.

The European beverage market – united in variety
The convention of market researchers to divide the European market into two parts, a West European and an East European part, is not attributable to their reluctance to accept political revolutions, but arises from findings that can be proved empirically: There are still large differences in beverage consumption in Europe. This division into two parts also has its pitfalls, however; for example, it conceals a north-south division of Europe that also exists in terms of beer consumption.

Canadean shows 1 per cent growth in the beer markets of Western Europe in 2006, whereas a growth of 3.7 % was noted in Eastern Europe. Russia with 2.4 % more has decisively contributed to this. The days of rocketing increases in the volume of sales in Russia are therefore probably over, as incidentally in most of the other countries in the East European market region. Russia with over 90 million hl of beer consumption is the biggest market ahead of Poland (30 million hl) and the Ukraine (21 million hl).

If individual countries within the market region of Western Europe are observed, it can be seen that beer consumption in Spain rose by 2.9 % in 2006. It also climbed a little in Italy and Portugal. This seems to confirm the theory that the European beer market is also divided along a north-south axis: into a stagnating and in the medium term declining North European part, whose losers include Germany, Sweden and Denmark, and a slightly more dynamic South European part.

These trends have admittedly not yet become noticeable in the top ten ranking of the countries where people most enjoy a few drinks. The Czechs with a beer consumption of 159 l per head are still the world’s number 1, a position they have traditionally defended for decades. The Irish are in second place (133 l), followed by the Germans (115 l), Austrians (111 l) and British (96 l). The Estonians (94 l), whose consumption has climbed from 82 to 94 litres within a year, hold sixth place, ahead of the Belgians and Lithuanians (both 91 l), Finns (88 l) and Danes (87 l).

The European beer market presents a highly heterogeneous combined show of individual markets. According to experience, one of the reasons for this is that beer consumption is adversely affected by factors which the brewers themselves cannot influence in their respective markets. These include the economic situation, government intervention to limit alcohol consumption, unfavourable demographic developments or even the weather.

This may well be little consolation for the brewer, but in contrast to the beer market, the European market for non-alcoholic drinks proves to be far more inconsistent. In other words, the values determined for the whole of Europe are in fact only average values, as the differences in consumption between Western Europe and Eastern Europe are considerable. For Western Europe, the market observers at WILD in Heidelberg determined a total consumption of non-alcoholic drinks (excluding home drinks and hot drinks) of 247 l per head in 2006. The value in Eastern Europe was 101 l per head, so the European average is accordingly 175 l. This value is correct in terms of figures, but is unfortunately totally useless for a realistic consideration of the market.

If the individual beverage segments are compared with each other, the discrepancy between Western and Eastern Europe is noticeable immediately. 112 l of water per head (West) compared with 34 l (East). 75 l of carbonated drinks (West) compared with 42 l (East). 26 l of fruit juices and nectars (West) compared with 14 l (East). This could be continued in the same way as far as the segment of “fruit powders”: Eastern Europe leads here with 1 litre per head, whereas this column remains empty in Western Europe.

The situation is different for sports and energy drinks, whose high-margin growth has provided encouraging news on the West European market for the past seven years. The per head consumption of these drinks doubled between 2000 and 2006: from 2 to 4 l. This segment is still relatively unknown in Eastern Europe, however. The quantities sold are so small that the figure after conversion to the usual litres per head is still zero.

The division of the European market for non-alcoholic drinks into two parts is still much too non-specific to be able to derive detailed information from it concerning the status quo. The best example of this is the “fruit juices and nectars” segment in Western Europe. Here the market observers at WILD determined a growth in consumption from 24 to 26 l between 2000 and 2006. A very encouraging result, if it were not marred by the fact that juice consumption has stagnated since 2003.

Rising prices for the concentrate have certainly contributed to this development, but the market has been affected far more heavily by the declining consumption in Germany: This dropped from 46.6 to less than 40 l from 2003 to 2006. According to Canadean, sales of fruit juices in Germany shrunk by 7 % last year alone. The effects on the West European and global market are far-reaching. So far-reaching that Canadean assigns juice consumption in Western Europe only 0.4 % annual growth for the coming years – and gives Germany the blame for this. Germany has the highest per head consumption of fruit juices in the world. This makes Western Europe the second most important market for fruit juices from an international viewpoint. Germany on its own accounts for one third of sales in Western Europe. The more frequently German consumers reach for flavoured water instead of fruit juices, the more noticeable the consequences – and not only for the German juice producers, but for the category overall.

Whether for beer, water or juices, may the trends proceed more clearly in other market regions of this world than in Europe and also in one direction only – upwards. Europe, however, has always had a genius for what the English artist William Blake (1757-1827) called “the minute particular”. Europe is umpteen copies of the minute particular. Anyone concerned with Europe must look very closely – also when taking a drink in the coffee houses of Europe.