General review
Amstel markets, including Greece, Hungary and Thailand. In these countries the advertisements
focus on local circumstances and consumer perception.
Specialties
Specialty beers continue to gain in popularity in the mature Western beer markets. They therefore
have a permanent place in our portfolio. Sales volume of our specialty beers increased also in 2000,
leading to an improved sales mix. We expect this growth to continue. We will therefore introduce
our specialty beers onto various markets and further expand our portfolio.
Our fastest growing specialty beer, Desperados, sold well in Western Europe. The white beer
Wieckse Witte made good progress and has been introduced in Spain, the United States and New
Zealand. The range of specialties was expanded in 2000 to include the traditional Belgian abbey
beer Affiigem. The Murphy's brand performed well from the international point of view. Murphy's
Irish Stout and Murphy's Irish Red profited from the huge popularity of the 'Irish Pub' concept.
Murphy's Irish Red achieved substantial growth outside the Irish pubs as well.
At the start of 2001 Paulaner Weissbeer was added to our portfolio.
Research and development
Research and development play a strategic role in the Group, as they constitute the basis for inno
vation and are therefore of vital importance to the Group's competitive position, particularly where
the position of our international brands Heineken and Amstel is concerned. Some R&D activities
are carried out locally, but are coordinated from the Netherlands. This approach ensures that prom
ising projects are selected and improves the lead time. Heineken makes extensive use of the knowl
edge available in research institutions and institutes in its projects.
Present research projects are focusing mainly on raw materials the development of new types of
packaging and an even better control of the supply chain. In addition, we continue to devote atten
tion to matters such as reducing costs, efficiency in the production, and the environment.
The development of new packagings has produced good results. A keg-shaped can has now been
included permanently in our portfolio for the United States. In the Netherlands we have started
printing wash off images on crates. This increases the potential for promotional activities and
enhances the crate's appeal to the consumer. The number of shapes and sizes of PET bottles has
grown.
In the environmental sphere a better method has been developed for filtering beer using sustain
able membrane filtration. This new technique can in future replace filtering using kieselguhr, which
can only be used once.
Further, a start has been made on improving the efficiency of production lines world-wide. New,
ambitious production indicators have been introduced for this purpose. Additional programmes
of improvement have already resulted in noticeably higher productivity, especially of the filling
lines. An improvement in the efficiency of filling lines means an increase in the capacity of the
entire brewery.
Environment and safety
In 2000 Heineken published its first European environmental report covering the years 1998 and
1999. This report provides an insight into the efforts made in the field of the environment by our
European operating companies and the results they achieved. The report covers our breweries,
malt-houses and soft drinks facilities. About 25 different environmental indicators were involved
in the reporting. The environmental report also sets out the targets for the next three years. The re
port is available in print as well as on our web site.
HEINEKEN N.V. ANNUAL REPORT 2000
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