Warsaw (Puls Biznesu) – Kompania Piwowarska (KP), the owner of three breweries, which since last year has been Poland’s leader as far as sales are concerned, is going to increase its capacity. ‘In the upcoming four years, we are going to conduct projects worth PLN 280 m (EUR 66.9 m). We want to increase capacity of the Tychy brewery so that the capacity of this plant and of the brewery in Poznan grows to 15 m hectolitres a year from 12 m’, Karl Lippert, KP general director said.
So far, KP has invested a lot in its Dojlidy brewery. ‘We have get rid of eight products without brands and six kinds of Dojlidy beer. We have refreshed Zubr brand. Capacity has been doubled to 1.4 m hectolitres and will be increased to 2.5 m hectolitres within two years. We will invest PLN 100 m more in this plant’, Karl Lipper enumerated. He added that although KP paid for Dojlidy USD 38 m (EUR 29.5 m), a year after the acquisition the brand was worth five times more.
SABMiller, the owner of KP, came to Poland in the 1990ies. The company bought two breweries with 18 percent market share. Today it has 35 percent of the market. SABMiller from the Republic of South Africa, is listed in London and Johannesburg. In 2004, its Polish subsidiary had PLN 442 m of net income. First quarter results will be presented on May 23rd. KP sells 10.3 m hectolitres of beer, and is SABMiller’s biggest European market and third world market.
(PLN 1 = EUR 0.239)
(USD 1 = EUR 0.776)Poland/Enterprises/Beverages