Coopers Brewery predicts beer market to stay flat
The boss of Australia’s third-largest beer company, Cooper’s Brewery, says cost-of-living pressures have dented the sales of packaged beer but have sparked renewed demand for home brew kits in the past few weeks.
Managing director Tim Cooper also said the boardroom stoush at Dan Murphy’s owner Endeavour Group was “surprising”.
Coopers, which has about 5 per cent of the national beer market, generated a 5 per cent increase in revenue to $287 million for year to June 30, and lifted net profit to $19.8 million from $19.2 million.
But the Coopers MD said it was a tough market, with overall beer consumption down 15 per cent since the 1980s. “It is a bit of a challenge,” Dr Cooper said on Thursday. “We’re not crying in our soup.”
The first few months of the new financial year had brought some improvement, with a new Australian Lager released in August making strong headway, and home brew kit sales rising.
Coopers Brewery managing director Tim Cooper says the company “is not crying in our soup” even though the beer market is contracting.
“More people are brewing their own beer again under tightened circumstances,” Mr Cooper said. “The pack side has been under pressure,” citing a 5 per cent decline in sales of packaged beer in 2022-23.
Trading at Dan Murphy’s and BWS owner Endeavour had been “stable” in the past few weeks, and Dr Cooper did not detect any distractions from the stoush between Endeavour’s 15 per cent shareholder Bruce Mathieson and the Endeavour board.
“It was surprising,” he said of the scale of the public proxy fight.
He aimed to do more business with Endeavour: “Historically we under-trade with Endeavour,” he said. “In the last couple of years we’ve been doing better with Coles.”
Coopers has a large presence
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