Russia: “Vena” to hit Yekaterinburg beer market with double force

Chelyabinsk brewery “Vena” has celebrated the end of a project aiming to double its brewing capacities, which was made possible only after merging with “Baltika”, “Yarpivo” and “Pikra” - the leaders of the Russian beer market.

The Russian beer market is nowadays among the most interesting beer markets of the world. Beer consumption has doubled in the last two decades. In the early ’80, a Russian was drinking 25 liters/year on average. Today, beer consumption progressed up to 60 liters/year for a person. Moscow and Saint Petersburg lead the way with indicators closed to the European beer drinking standards – 80-90 liters of beer for a person annually.

Meanwhile, the Russian beer market is actively evolving. This is proved by a solid consolidation of brewing capacities in the hands of few active players: 80% of the local beer market is controlled by 5 big breweries. The reasons for this consolidation are: generally beer industry locates in districts, hence they try to reduce logistics and production costs.

According to “Baltika” Chairman Anton Artemiev, beer production will be sufficient to enlarge its presence in Ural capital, Yekaterinburg, where “Heineken”-owned “Patra” has a strong position to defend. “At this moment, “Baltika” controls 26% of Yekaterinburg beer market, but we intend to increase sales and to bring them up to our general Russian beer market share which is nearly 35%,” Atemiev said.

E-malt.com, the global information source for the brewing and malting industry professionals. The bi-weekly E-malt.com Newsletters feature latest industry news, statistics in graphs and tables, world barley and malt prices, and other relevant information. Click here to get full access to E-malt.com. If you are a Castle Malting client, you can get free access to E-malt.com website and publications. Contact us for more information at marketing@castlemalting.com .