9
Geographical breakdown of sales
of beer brewed under the supervision
of Heineken
(in millions of guilders)
As already observed, the holding in the
Spanish brewery group El Aguila S.A.
was increased to 51.2%. The company
made good progress with its long-range
programme for restructuring and modern
ization. Adlerbrau beer was introduced
as a new brand. In addition, with effect
from 1986 El Aguila has started the dis
tribution of Heineken beer in Spain.
Our Italian operating company Birra
Dreher S.p.A. increased its interest in
Sarde Produzioni Agricole Industriali
S.p.A. to 70%. This company, established
at Cagliari, produces amongst other
things beer under the Ichnusa brand,
which holds a strong position in Sardinia.
In the Netherlands a new beer was devel
oped which is being marketed under the
brand name Amstel 1870. This year
refers to the year of foundation of the
Amstel brewery.
The main thrust of expansion of the enter
prise was indeed in Europe during the
year under review, but elsewhere too
there were developments aimed at
strengthening and expanding Heineken's
international position.
In Costa Rica locally brewed Heineken
beer was introduced, for which purpose
a licensing agreement had been con
cluded in the previous year with the local
brewery group Florida Ice Farm Com
pany S.A.
In Africa, local raw materials are increas
ingly being used with success in beer
production. During the year under review
Nigerian Breweries Ltd. introduced a type
of beer under the brand name Rex, for
which the raw material consists to a con
siderable extent of sorghum - an indigen
ous cereal.
Our affiliate Malayan Breweries Ltd.
started preparations for the construction
of a new brewery in Singapore. This will
serve to replace the two existing pro
duction units.
Research and development
In view of the high demands made on
the quality, taste and shelf life of
Heineken products, much energy was
again devoted to research and develop
ment in the year under review. These
activities relate to production processes
as well as to the composition of the prod
ucts and product renewal.
New research techniques are contributing
to a further understanding of the fermen
tation process, thus increasing the control
of a substantial part of the beer manu
facturing process.
Like the production of malt, brewing is
a biotechnological process. Consequently,
it means working with living, natural mate
rials such as malt, hops and yeast.
In several stages of the beer manufac
turing process filtration or settling are
necessary. Great attention is constantly
paid to the further improvement and de
velopment of these techniques.
In our laboratory and our experimental
brewery research continued with the aim
of preserving a constant taste. Research
on raw materials has shown that factors
which have an important influence on
the stability of the taste of beer are al
ready present in the composition of the
malt.
Due to lack of hard currency in a number
of African countries barley malt cannot
be imported there, or not in sufficient
quantities. For some years now we have
therefore been engaged in researching
- in addition to barley malt for brewing
beer - the use of unmalted locally grown
cereals such as sorghum, rice and maize.
In order to give this programme further
substance, good progress has been made
with the setting up of a research centre
at Nigerian Breweries Ltd. For the pur
pose of raw materials research an auto
mated 5-litre experimental brewery to
gether with experimental maltworks, de
veloped in the Netherlands, was installed
in Lagos. This test laboratory, manned
amongst others by employees of the
Nigerian brewery who were trained in