| Carlsberg Brewery in Copenhagen Denmark is one of the worlds largest and oldest running breweries of whose famous lager beer is distributed across the world. Today Carlsberg is just one brand of the four hundred and forty seven brands of the Carlsberg Group that produces and distributes. The Carlsberg Group headquarters are located in the city of Copenhagen Denmark at the historic location of the Carlsberg brewery. I was lucky enough to have had visited the historic brewery in Copenhagen during the cities science festival this past year. The brewery has a compound of buildings in the city that take over a dozen square city blocks. The old Carlsberg brewery is open to the public and welcomes locals and international travelers to visit. Visitors can take a self guided or guided tour through the old brewery that is a modern brewery history museum for the Carlsberg brewery and its modern diverse brands. The Carlsberg Group distributes to Eastern Europe, Western Europe and Asia and owns just over 6% of the global beer industry based on sales in 2014 (Statista). With the current AB InBev and Miller Coors deal in the works, that organization global market share will amount to over 30% from statistics from 2014 (Statista). The Carlsberg Group has focused the efforts more in the Asian beer markets and far less in the America's. The Asian beer industry is expanding and Asian consumers are increasing the beer consumption at a high rate every year. With a general lack of locally sourced beer in Asia and the average consumer more attracted to low cost lager beer compared to expensive craft beer or other imported beer, the Asian market will continue to grow. In the world of macro brewery market shares, future projections will follow the current trend of macro breweries losing more and more market share to regional craft breweries. In addition, regional sized craft breweries will have to distribute to less local markets in micro brewery saturated regions as more micro brewery, 15 barrels in production volume or less, start in those regions. What we are witnessing in the current beer industry in the United States is a reversion to a more traditional beer market. In traditional beer markets villages/cities will have several local smaller scale breweries that will meet the a segment of the local populations beer demands. In the United States currently this is what is happening. Large scale macro breweries are losing market share to larger regional craft breweries and larger scale craft breweries are losing local market share to micro breweries. The future of the US beer industry in regards to market share will look much more like the beer markets in Germany, Czech Republic and Belgium where the ratio of micro breweries to population are closer. The traditional beer markets that exist in Europe are structured with multiple small micro breweries in a high population area, most often villages or cities. The close proximity of micro breweries in Europe originated hundreds of years ago when beer had a shorter shelf life do the the lack of modern refrigeration, brewing technologies and the overall higher consumption rate per person. The modern beer market in the united states before prohibition looked very much like a traditional beer market. Multiple micro breweries were in operation across higher population areas. After prohibition the regulations and legislation of the US did not allow small micro breweries to come to market and be self sustainable. With the deregulation of the federal government in the later 20th century micro breweries were able to start again and start to developed the craft beer industry in the US. With the several decades of increasing population and a cultural need for self expression higher population areas of the US are hosting more smaller scale craft breweries that are in turn taking market share from large macro and regional scale craft breweries. As the population continues to grow and government regulations continue to allow more breweries to come to market we will see larger scale macro and regional sized craft breweries loss more market share and shelf space across the beer markets of the world. |
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AuthorStarting working in the craft beer industry several years ago in Scotland UK, while research the marketing and management of craft breweries, Schuyler Ward continues to work in the craft beer industry while networking building the collaborative network to improve the beverage industry. Archives
June 2015
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