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Soft drinks e
show steady
More than 85of Heineken's activities re
late to beer. No vvon 1 er\ then, that many
people know Heineken only as a brewery.
But Heineken does much more. For in
stance, in the area of soft drinks, with fac
tories in various countries, including the
Netherlands, Zaïre, Indonesia, Rwanda
and New Caledonia- Efforts are also de
voted to the export of soft drinks, produced
at V' i-ii in on; i, a subsidiary of Heineken-Hol-
land. And with growing success. Vrumona's
soft drinks are meanwhile exported to
some ninety countries all over the globe.
The export of soft drinks all
started cautiously and on a very
small scale in 1981 As the
number of hectolitres destined for
foreign markets showed rapid growth,
Heineken's export organisation was
asked to provide some of its specialist
know-how. Ibgether with several Vru-
mona staff a plan was drawn up to
structure the company's export drive.
'Exports of soft drinks boomed.
Within a couple of years we were ex
porting an annual volume of 300,000
hectolitres. But a sudden upswing like
that often knocks things out of balance
and that was the problem we faced as
well. More than half of our soft drinks
sales (mainly Pepsi Cola) were shipped
to the Middle East. We benefited from
a shortage of bottling capacity in that
region. But, once those problems in the
Middle East had been solved and after
our most important customer, Saudi
Arabia, closed its borders to imports of
bottled soft drinks, we found that we
had lost more than half our sales vol
ume', explains Mr. S. Hiemstra, Heine
ken's soft drinks export manager.
Combination
The 100,000 hectolitres of soft drink
exports which then remained were
characterised by a wide diversity of
products and packs, which brought
extra production costs. An organisa
tional consultancy bureau looked into
the problem. One of the suggestions it
made was to scrap half of all the pack
varieties from the range.
Besides this, a strategic rethink had
already been started at Vrumona to
study which world markets Vrumona
could supply with success. It was de
cided to make greater use than previ
ously of the Heineken export organisa
tion so as to identify new customers in
new markets. 'Soft drinks and beer are
not so far apart as you might imagine.
In many countries a brewery and a
lemonade plant form a first-rate combi
nation', says Mr. Hiemstra, whose task
is to keep Heineken's export managers
informed about soft drinks and encour
age them to include soft drinks in their
sales package. His responsibilities also
cover regular exports to countries in
Western Europe and conducting
worldwide negotiations on contract
packing. The soft drinks export depart
ment forms the link between the Heine
ken export organisation and Vrumona
and concentrates on mapping out the
policy for the future years.
Future
That future is viewed with confi
dence by Heineken. At the present time
3 million hectolitres of soft drinks are
exported annually from Holland. The
bulk goes to Holland's neighbouring
countries. For the time being Vrumona
has opted to operate only on a modest
scale on these highly competitive mar
kets. But, as regards exports to other
countries throughout the world, Vru-
mona's market share is almost fifty per
cent, making it a force to be reckoned
with amongst soft drinks exporters.
One particularly important form of
exporting is the contract packing of soft
drinks. Vrumona now handles the can
ning of soft drinks for several Caribbean
THE WORLD OF HEINEKEN