Beer giant to limit price increases

Despite the spike in food inflation, beer drinkers won’t have to fork out much more money for the satisfaction of a cold beer.

Michel Doukeris, the new global CEO of brewing giant AB InBev, which owns South African Breweries (SAB), says the company is working hard to manage costs and to cushion its customers against price increases.

Doukeris was speaking at a media roundtable in Johannesburg on Thursday, on his first official visit to South Africa since assuming his role in July 2021.

According to Doukeris, the company’s exposure to diverse markets – which face vastly different inflationary pressures – has helped it build a resilient business model that’s able to shield consumers from rising cost pressures.

“When we look at what’s happening globally, we see across all categories prices going up but we see that beer so far is lagging inflation. Meaning that the price increases that we put in the market, they are falling behind inflation,” he says.

“We try to organise our price actions in ways that take into consideration not only costs but the overall industry and the overall economies and purchase power for consumers.”

This cushioning against kneejerk price increases can be observed in the performance of SAB’s premium brands, which according to SAB CEO Richard Rivett-Carnac, has retained its customer base despite the current economic climate, even registering some growth.

“What we are seeing is a slight shift where people are living a little bit more for the now and I think that the pandemic has driven some of that change in behaviours,” Rivett-Carnac says.

“We’ve seen growth in premium.

Obviously, there are a lot of consumers that are feeling the effects of the reality of the economy that we live in but the people who can afford premium products [are] choosing to go out and do it.”

Rivett-Carnac adds that SAB is excited about the growth trajectory in its “beyond beer” brands like Flying Fish and Brutal Fruit.

Globally, we see prices going up but beer lags inflation.

Michel Doukeris CEO AB Inbev