Krombacher, largest beer brand in Germany extended its lead in 2017 according to the newest beer brand charts published on Friday by Inside Getraenke. The brand from the namesake village in the rural countryside 80 kilometers east of Cologne, gained another 105,000 hectoliters (+1.9%) last year. Total volumes of Krombacher beer (Pils, Radler, Alkoholfrei, Weizen, Dunkel, Keller, Hell and Fassbrause) were 5.78 million hectoliters. The result marks another all-time sales high in Krombacher’s 215 years of history and 18 years of uninterrupted growth.
Krombacher’s regional side beer brands like Rolinck, Eichener, Rhenania and CAB, which are not counted in the figures above, did not perform that well and lost again about 15,000 hl (2016: -20,000 hl).
One of Krombacher’s best performing brands was again Vitamalz (210,000 hl, +16%), the nation’s second largest non-alcoholic sweetened malt beverage, which Krombacher acquired in total one and a half years ago. (inside.beer, 28.9.2016).
The range of non-alcolohic beverages with brands like Schweppes (+4.6%), Orangina and Dr.Pepper (together +2.5%) also developed favorably. In November 2017 Krombacher also acquired distribution rights for Germany and Austria for Nestea, the fourth largest ice tea brand in Germany, from brand holder Nestlé. Because distribution started last week, the 850,000 hl will not show up in the statistics of 2017.
Altogether, alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages of the Krombacher Brauerei account for a total of 7.1 million hl.
Bernhard Schadeberg (52), co-owner of the brewery together with his father Friedrich Schadeberg (97), his aunt Barbara Lambrecht-Schadeberg (82) and his sister Petra Schadeberg-Herrmann (50), is not that optimistic for 2018. Because of a planned, revoked and again announced price increase as of March 1, 2018 (inside.beer, 5.10.2017) and adverse market conditions, Schadeberg plans a negative organic volume growth of -2.0% this year.
