admininvestment in capacity upgrades.
The growth in Delta’s lager volumes spurred overall volume growth for global brewer and part shareholder SABmiller, which holds 36,9 percent equity in the Delta.
SABmiller’s 2011 large volumes half-year exceeded the 2010 volumes, for the interim to September 30, by 3 percent.
The global liquor brewer said Castle delivered 11 percent lager volume growth with good performance noted in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Cameroon.
Soft drinks volumes also did extremely well after growing by 10 percent with robust performances in Ghana and Zimbabwe. Volumes grew by 54 percent in Ghana.
Local volumes grew on the back of a US$133 million capital investment in new lager and soft drink plants and a US$67 million capital injection in 2012 would take total expenditure over the last three years to US$200 million.
Said SABmiller: “Beer consumption continued to vary across global markets, with further healthy growth in Latin America and Africa and underlying economic weakness persisting in North America and European (markets)”.
Growth slowed in the second quarter, in part reflecting stronger prior year comparatives, and some particularly poor weather in Europe and China in the current period.
Soft drink volumes grew by 6 percent. Volume growth combined with selective price increases and mix benefits increased group revenue by 6 percent and group revenue per hectolitre by 3 percent in constant currency.
Raw material costs rose moderately and investment in the group’s brands and market facing capabilities was increased, which together with higher central costs constrained margins, overall, financial performance for the half year was in line with expectations.
Delta, the brewer of Castle, Black Label and Lion lagers, has indicated it would bring forward the commissioning of a new beer packaging line for Southerton to July/August 2012 instead of July/ August 2013.
In Zimbabwe, sparkling beverage volumes showed strong growth despite the price adjustment (of approximately 20 percent), which was effected in June 2011.
Delta commissioned a new soft drinks returnable glass bottle packaging line in August 2011 and this is expected to resolve the constrained capacity on the 300ml bottles.
The total cost of the line was approximately US$13 million and increased the available capacity to 2 million hectolitres.
Earlier, it had installed new lager beer and soft drink packing lines in Harare and Bulawayo.
Online Reporter