{"id":2179,"date":"2014-12-02T06:00:38","date_gmt":"2014-12-02T11:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beerbusinessunplugged.com\/?p=2179"},"modified":"2014-11-24T12:15:41","modified_gmt":"2014-11-24T17:15:41","slug":"the-sooner-you-fall-behind-the-more-time-youll-have-to-catch-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beerbusinessunplugged.com\/?p=2179","title":{"rendered":"The sooner you fall behind, the more time you’ll have to catch up."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"HeinekenLightCan\"<\/a>For many years Heineken ruled the import sales in the US market despite using an independent importer and employing wine and spirit houses as major distributor networks.\u00a0 Only when Corona caught fire and rocketed past Heineken in the 1980s did Heineken change.\u00a0 They first took over importing rights, and later, moved distribution rights to the beer network.<\/p>\n

The change caused brand sales to grow dramatically, but Heineken still could not catch Corona.\u00a0 They did, however, develop one of, if not the best, marketing departments for beer in the US.\u00a0 Then the recession hit.<\/p>\n

In 1999, 18 European countries adopted the Euro as their currency. Initially the exchange rate against the dollar was established at 1:1743.\u00a0 Prior to the establishment of the Euro, countries had their own currency. When Warsteiner came to the US in 1980, the exchange rate against the mark was.80:1.\u00a0 The dollar was stronger than the mark for many years until the Euro was created.<\/p>\n

The exchange rate made selling beer for Europeans very lucrative.\u00a0 Exchanging marks for dollars was just good business.\u00a0 Many of the imported brands did well as their breweries invested in the US.<\/p>\n

By 2000, the dollar\u2019s strength against the Euro increased, going from the 1.17 exchange rate to a low of\u00a0.8252.\u00a0 It did not stay that low for long, and by July of 2008, the dollar against the Euro was at a high of 1.6038.<\/p>\n

For the European breweries, enough was enough, At Warsteiner, for example, controlling (accountants) started raising prices dramatically and reducing overhead including, staff and marketing.\u00a0 The result of these moves cost these breweries sales and market share, the exception being Stella.\u00a0 Heineken also lost sales and share, as the cut backs hit everyone hard.<\/p>\n

For years the European economy has been stagnate, and coupled with the changing demographics, this has resulted in slowly dying beer sales.\u00a0 In fact, NAs dominate some countries.\u00a0 In Spain, the NA market is over 10%.\u00a0 One brewery in Germany estimated that by 2020, their overall sales could be 22% NA.<\/p>\n

Breweries pushed for growth in other countries starting with Russia. That country, however, tripled beer taxes recently, thus resulting in a decline in sales.\u00a0 China has been targeted, but business there has also been a challenge.\u00a0 Africa and South America support locally made brands.<\/p>\n

In the last several years, European breweries have attempted to return to growth in the US.\u00a0 Heineken has ramped up marketing and staffing, as have other smaller importers like Warsteiner.\u00a0 So why now?<\/p>\n

The exchange rate for the Euro closed recently at 1.23.\u00a0 It has been declining for some time.\u00a0 As the dollar gets stronger, this makes the US beer market much more attractive for these overseas breweries.\u00a0 Recent IRI numbers for Heineken are now in the plus side.<\/p>\n

The decisions made by these companies in the middle of the last decade are now being reversed.\u00a0 Breweries such as Bavaria, Carlsberg and others, will look back to the US as the dollar regains strength.\u00a0 They will attempt to recapture what they walked away from as the executives behind these decisions have retired.<\/p>\n

These European breweries have been around for centuries, for them, the sooner you fall behind, the more time you’ll have to catch up.<\/p>\n

Beer Fodder;\u00a0http:\/\/www.citylab.com\/<\/span>politics\/2014\/11\/europes-beer-price-index-will-streamline-your-party-budget\/383043\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For many years Heineken ruled the import sales in the US market despite using an independent importer and employing wine and spirit houses as major distributor networks.\u00a0 Only when Corona caught fire and rocketed past Heineken in the 1980s did Heineken change.\u00a0 They first took over importing rights, and later, moved distribution rights to the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_s2mail":"yes","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2xRTi-z9","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beerbusinessunplugged.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2179"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beerbusinessunplugged.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beerbusinessunplugged.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beerbusinessunplugged.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beerbusinessunplugged.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2179"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/www.beerbusinessunplugged.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2179\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2207,"href":"https:\/\/www.beerbusinessunplugged.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2179\/revisions\/2207"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beerbusinessunplugged.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beerbusinessunplugged.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beerbusinessunplugged.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}