Heineken is going to double its capacity in Brazil by June 2020 Mauricio Giamellaro, President Heineken Brazil told Valor Econômico today. The group will invest BRL 985 million (USD 244 million) in its plants in Araraquara, Itu and Jacareí, Algoinhas (BA) and Ponta Grossa (PR). In May, it already became known that Heineken will spend more than half of this sum in the state of São Paulo alone (inside.beer, 30.5.2019).
The investment, which started in January, became necessary after Heineken was able to get the ailing former Schincariol breweries back on track. In 2017 the Dutch brewer bought the business from Kirin Holdings Co from Japan for USD 700 million. Kirin withdrew from the South American market after unsuccessfully trying for 6 years to turn Brazil’s No. 2 brewer Schincariol into a profitable business. (inside.beer,13.2.2017)
According to Giamellaro, who took over office in March from former President Didier Debrosse, Heineken has set a double-digit growth goal for the mainstream and premium sector in Brazil, thus outperforming the overall beer market which is expected to grow by three percent over the next three years.
Besides an overall growth of the market, Heineken is also expected to gain market share from market leader AB InBev, which sold two out of three beers in Brazil, when Heineken entered the market in 2017.
When publishing its third quarter results today, AB InBev had to admit that its volume sales in Brazil declined in the last three months “in the low single digits range”(inside.beer, 25.10.2019).
