bigger profits

Brewery Feature

Vailima brews bigger profits

Along with its well known rugby team, Western Samoa’s high-profile Vailima beer continues to gain popularity in the Pacific and farther afield.

Exports are up and last year the German-type lager won a Gold medal (its third) at the Monde Selection in Luxembourg, beating off competition from 150 other entries.

“Its got a broad appeal to everyone, including women, because it’s an easy beer to drink,” says Western Samoa Breweries manager Fiti Fiti.

The company describes Vailima as hav ing “a clean crisp taste with plenty of bite”. The European connection comes through an agree ment with Haase Braurel

which frequently trains Samoans to become brew masters at its headquarters in Germany.

Western Samoa Breweries was estab lished in 1978 and now employs 130 peo ple. Situated near the capital, Apia, it pro duces Vailima lager and Eku beer, togeth er with Coca-Cola and associated-brand soft drinks.

Beer sales have remained fairly static recently say Fiti, in part because of the higher cost of living for the 165,000 popu lation, the majority of whom have little dis posable income.

Still, Samoans manage to guzzle 28 litres of beer per person and 19 litres of soft drink a year.

The brewery turns out 4.6 million litres of beer for the local market and 950,000 litres for export to its main market in neigh bouring American Samoa and the Tokelau Islands.

Securing the American Samoa market meant increasing Vailimas usual alcohol content of 4.9 per cent to 6.7,per cent, to fend off competition from the big-selling Steinlager brand out of New Zealand.

“People were saying Steinlager was a stronger beer,” says Fiti. “We were only selling about 500 crates a month whereas Steinlager must have been selling 10,000

crates, so we decided to come up with this special export beer to combat the percep tion by people that Steinlager was stronger. Now we have most of the mar ket.”

Honolulu starts selling Vailima for the first time early this year.

Cans of Vailima produced in New Zealand will be on sale in Western Samoa soon. A recent “Can of the Year” competi tion held annually in the United States saw the standout black Vailima product, nomi nated as one of only five overseas entries.

On its home track though, Vailima con tinues to dominate, over imported brands (e.g Budiweser, DB and Steinlager), that make up between five and 10 per cent of the market.

Through its now Apia-based distributor, MC International, Budweiser the self pro claimed “King of Beers” has, since last August, been aggressively promoting itself in an attempt to win over a bigger share of beer sales.

“Competition is good, it makes us all work a bit harder, but Budweiser hasn’t had any effect on our sales yet,” says Fiti.

The imported beer market here is rela tively small, we still do our promotions, its an on-going thing for us to give something back to the public regardless of the com

petition.”

Part of the Vailima promotion pack ageincludes on-going sponsorship between the Western Samoa Breweries and the Manu Samoa, who completed a successful tour of Scotland and England last month.

The SUS2SO three-year deal for the team includes cash, clothing playing gear and training equipment.

While no new products are in the pipeline for the immediate future, a light beer , which was bought out a few weeks ago, and then withdrawn, could be the next big money spinner. A low-alcohol beer could find its niche, given the fitness boom that has overtaken the country since the success of the Manu Samoa, and a grow ing awareness about looking and feeling

good.

A bland tasting Kiwifruit-flavoured soft drink was produced last year then quickly dropped, and a competing mini-brewery (whose labels looked identical to Steinlager’s) quit producing its two brands of beer, in the face of poor sales.

The government remains Western Samoa Breweries’ main shareholder with 66.7 per cent stake. The balance is split between a number of overseas investors (27.6 per cent) and locals (5.7 per cent).H