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

Jaarverslagen en Personeelsbladen Heineken

Jaarverslagen | 1986 | | pagina 11