Do Not Fear Change
Developments in global lifestyles are reflected in the changing tastes within the beer category. Chloe Gold provides an overview of the main beer suppliers and explores the opportunities in the channel for consumption and exciting retail offers
THE journey of the beer category in travel-retail has been an intriguing one. As lifestyles are changing fast and more people than ever are venturing to foreign lands, so too are people adopting more adventurous tastes and are more willing to explore new offers in the duty-free market, as Greg Graves – managing Director, Heineken International Duty Free & Travel Retail – explains.
"The beer category benefits by growing in accordance with the industry,” he says. “We see two broad consumer trends within travel retail – the continued growth of premium brands and the growth of speciality beers. Consumers continue to tradeup to premium brands that fit and reflect their more global or cosmopolitan lifestyle. This is seen generally across categories within travel-retail as well as in the travel-retail beer segment. The other trend is consumers experimenting and trying new types of products such as ciders, ales, wheat beers, abbey beers and so on. This trend benefits brands such as Heineken, which is the number one brand in the international premium beer segment.”
However, as beer is rarely recognised as a premium product it is the responsibility of the beer industry to change this around in order to overcome these potential restrictions. Graves says that Heineken is at the helm of this new movement with the focus to change the way people view beer.
“The potential commoditisation of beer within travel-retail continues to have our attention,” he explains. “Many travel-retail operators see beer as a more mainstream, less premium product category overall. It is up to the brewing industry to help educate the travel-retail industry that we see that consumers are trading up to premium beer brands and that they are and will continue to be relevant to today’s global consumers.”
Heineken breaks travel-retail into various key channels such as International Ferries, Cruises Lines, Airlines, Airport shops and Border Crossing shops – channels that are growing and are driven by the continued expansion of global travel. Innovation in both packaging and draught beer systemscontinues to be an important focus for Heineken, according to Graves.
“The five litre DraughtKeg which provides consumers with true draught quality beer is a great example of an innovative product that we have been able to use successfully in the retail environment in border shops, ferries and airport shops where dutyfree arrival shopping is allowed. Our Xtreme Draught system – a mobile, maintenance-free draught system – has been a great innovation for cruise lines and ferries.Product and packaging innovation remains key to consumers and customers.”
Whilst travelling is on the one hand an exhilarating experience, it can also be quite stressful, so it comes
as no surprise to find that whether on a plane or in an airport, beer remains a popular choice of beverage for many consumers. Graves points out that markets which allow duty-free arrival shopping offer one of the great opportunities for beer.
“Our target is the international traveller. The opportunities for growth reflect the growth of the travel-retail industry. Airlines, airport shops and cruise lines are all growing and are sources of growth of beer in those channels,” says Graves. “We continue to expand and drive availability and the presence of the Heineken brand across travel-retail channels, exposing the brand to over 300 million consumers within travel-retail channels annually.”
Speaking about the future for Heineken, Graves concludes: “Our main focus is to continue to drive the Heineken brand within the global duty-free/ travel-retail industry and broaden our portfolio of premium brands to meet the needs of customers and consumers. Heineken is the number one brand within the international premium segment and is available in almost every country in the world. This means that we can offer our travel-retail customers a premium brand that will be known and demanded by consumers across all of the various regions and countries in which they operate.”
Not to be out-done by its competitor, Carlsberg – distributed in duty-free channels throughout the world – is another premium brand growing fast in the travel-retail segment, including ferries as well as border
shops, airlines and airports. “Carlsberg constantly strives to be one step ahead,” says Henrik Bodekaer Thomsen, export manager of Carlsberg. “We believe that the supreme quality in our products and our commitment to excellence results in the best lager in the world. We support the cultural scene both globally and locally, which is very unique,” he says, referring to Carlsberg’s sponsorship of EURO2008, which took place in Switzerland and Austria last June. “It was a great sponsorship and we managed to activate EURO2008 in more than 60 markets, including several travel-retail outlets.”
Carlsberg reveals that it is enjoying steady growth with regard to both inflight for consumption, and in
travel-retail. “However, travel-retail is important for reasons of volume,” explains Thomsen. “Whereas
airlines serve as a vehicle to ‘stage’ our premium international brands, Carlsberg is currently available
on airlines such as British Airways, SAS, RyanAir, Aeroflot (Tuborg) and more than 30 other international airlines on a global scale.”
Carlsberg continues to branch out and, from last year, decided to devote considerable energy to the
Indian travel-retail market after securing a contract with Indian Airlines to supply beer to business-class
passengers on all international routes. Since then, it has seen strong growth in 2007 via listings in Indian port shops.
“Premium/super premium segments are growing as shoppers tend to seek ‘entertainment’ as part of
the shopping experience,” says Thomsen. He adds: “On the whole, the total market is relatively stable.”
Since introducing a new speciality beer range last year in duty-free – the Jacobsen range – Carlsberg
has seen a good response. “It has been very successful with listings in Copenhagen Airport, Scandlines Border Shops, Stena Line and Color Line,” he says. “This year we have had two new additional major product launches: Somersby Apple Cider and Carlsberg LITE (4.1%), a fullflavoured beer with 30% less calories compared to the regular Carlsberg. Both have proved very successful in travel-retail after the launch in April 2008. Still, comparison to volumes in the mainstream segment makes little sense as this segment tends to compete against categories such as wine as opposed to cannibalising on the traditional beer category.”
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