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Europe
Shaping the future of beer
and beyond in Europe
“In another challenging year for our
consumers and customers, we
continued to drive the initiatives
that fuel our EverGreen
transformation. As the market
leader in Europe, we want to shape
the future of beer. We continued to
invest in and grow our premium
brand portfolio and our digital sales
footprint while accelerating our
productivity initiatives to future
proof our market leadership
in the region.”
31.5%
€1,353m
76.4mhl 15.5mhl
L 4
€12,211m 31.8%
Introduction
(2022: €11,362m)
Sustainability
Review
Other
Information
Financial
Statements
Report
of the
Supervisory
Board
Report
of the
Executive
Board
Soren Hagh*
President, Europe
Soren Hagh has been succeeded by
Glenn Caton as per 1 January 2024.
Despite a challenging year for our consumers and
customers in Europe, we continued to build on our
strong foundation of initiatives that fuel our
EverGreen transformation. The unprecedented
inflationary pressure in 2023 required a bold and
disciplined approach to revenue management to
protect the long-term health of our business. Beer
volume declined organically 5.4% for the full year,
sequentially improving into the final quarter to a
3.4% decline, offset by pricing which increased net
revenue (beia) by 6.3%. A strong performance in the
on-trade market has been more than offset by market
share losses in the off-trade. Additionally, bad weather
impacted our business over the key summer months
in 2023.
Strengthening our portfolio and geographic footprint
is key to our long-term growth strategy, and in 2023
we made progress on this front despite the
challenging operating environment. For example,
launching in the UK in 2023, Cruzcampo delivered
the biggest innovation in the beer, wine, and spirits
categories in the country. In July 2023, we sold the
soft drinks player Vrumona in the Netherlands. We
also sold K1664 in the UK. Both moves were with the
intent to focus more on our core business, optimising
our capital allocation and portfolio to unlock exciting
long-term growth opportunities in high potential
markets, which remains a crucial element of delivering
our EverGreen ambition across Europe.
As we navigated volatility in the region, we also
worked to continue building a future-fit HEINEKEN
in Europe. Our operating companies accelerated our
productivity initiatives, including the end-to-end
transformation of our supply chain. Operating profit
(beia) grew 11.9% organically as price-led revenue
growth, better on-trade mix and significant cost
savings from our end-to-end supply chain
transformation programme delivered in the second
half more than offset the material inflationary
pressures in our input and energy costs and a step-up
in investment behind our brands. Consequently,
operating profit (beia) margin improved by 33 bps.
We also continued to transform our digital sales
footprint, with more than 80% of sales in our focus
markets now online, proudly retaining the largest on-
trade eB2B platform in Europe.
We have made great progress to digitise our route-to-
consumer in Europe this year, successfully migrating
nine markets in Europe to our eB2B platform and
identity: eazle, business made easy. Created to make it
easy for our customers to run and grow their business.
We continued to focus on our Brew a Better World
strategy across the Europe region in 2023. A
significant milestone in our journey to reach net zero
carbon emissions in production (scope 1 and 2) by
2030, is the launch of Project Circle in France. In
partnership with our vendor Duynie this initiative will
extract high-quality proteins from our brewer spent
grain and use the remaining fibres as biofuel for our
French brewery. In Spain, we launched the largest
industrial solar thermal plant in Europe in partnership
with Engie - built to generate the heat that is key to
the brewing process. By the end of 2024, the site,
known by locals as the home of Cruzcampo, is
expected to operate with 84% renewable energy.
In addition to global activations, our operating
companies in Europe continued to explore innovative
local ways to promote and grow the relevance of low-
and no-alcohol beers among our consumers. A recent
example of how we are raising the bar on responsible
consumption is the launch of Player 0.0, a simulation
racing tournament. Through a virtual racing
experience for fans, Player 0.0 will help drive cut-
through of our message of responsible consumption
to a broader audience. The continued drive and built-
up momentum to bring our Brew a Better World 2030
ambitions to life is increasingly visible and recognised
across the region.
■B
Heineken
N.V.
Annual
Report
2023
Heineken® volume
(2022: 16.8mhl)
Consolidated
beer volume
as of total
(2022: 31.6%)
Our premium beer portfolio outperformed the wider
portfolio in the majority of markets, boosted by the
performance of our next generation brands, including
Texels, Gallia, Birra Moretti and El Aguila among
others. Our non-alcoholic offerings continued to build
scale in the majority of our markets, driven by the
success of Heineken® 0.0. Cider continued to
outperform the beer portfolio in the UK, Ireland, Spain
and Portugal, led by the success of innovations such as
Inch’s in the UK. We also continued to expand our
consumer-centric offering and pushed our portfolio
beyond beer, for instance by taking a minority position
in SERVED, the UK’s leading hard seltzer brand
endorsed by Ellie Goulding.
Key brands:
Birra Messina
Birra Moretti
Heineken®
Desperados
Strongbow
ULTRA
Operating
profit (beia)
(2022: €1,221m)
Consolidated
beer volume
(2022: 81.2mhl)
Net revenue (beia) Operating
(2022: €11,362m) profit (beia)
as of total
(2022: 27.7%)
