Coopers Brewery has unveiled its “better than expected” FY21 sales results, with packaged beer sales reached their highest volume on record.

“Cans continued their ascendency and now represent more than 30% of our packaged beer sales,” Coopers Managing Director Dr Tim Cooper said.

“Coopers Pale Ale is our clear leader in this format but well supported by XPA, Sparkling Ale and Mild Ale, with the latter benefiting from a strong trend towards mid-strength beer.”

Growth in Coopers packaged beer in 2020-21 compensated for reduced keg sales, which remain affected by the severe downturn in hospitality trade.

Australia’s largest independent family-owned brewery recorded total beer sales, excluding non-alcoholic beers, of 82.3 million litres in the 12 months to June 30, 2021.

This represented a 2.8% increase in sales volume from the previous financial year, but is still below the record volume result of 83.8 million litres achieved in 2016-17.

“The challenges faced by the hospitality industry and related consumer spending behaviour had varying impacts on the sales of packaged, bulk and DIY beer,” Dr Cooper (above) said.

“Bulk, or kegged beer, has continued to be under pressure, and was down 21% on the volume of the 2019 financial year, but more than 35% down on the peak volume of 13.4 million litres achieved 10 years ago in the 2011 financial year.

“However, overall, we’re seeing consumers continue to gravitate towards authentic brands they can trust with emphasis on high quality and local provenance. That is driving demand for Coopers beer despite the pandemic still acting to suppress keg sales across the industry.”

“We took the opportunity to invest over $2 million in upgrading our keg line during the year and refurbish 55,000 kegs.
“We have also just submitted plans to Council for a 5500 square metre expansion to our warehousing facilities at Regency Park. This $15 million investment, which boosts our beer storage capacity at the brewery by almost 50%, will allow us to store all our product on site where currently we use some off-site facilities for additional requirements.”

The state-by-state results

Across Australia, the varied experiences with the pandemic were reflected in the state-by-state sales volume results:

• South Australia – Up 6.6%
• Northern Territory – Up 6%
• Queensland – Up 3%
• Victoria – Up 1.8%
• Western Australia – Up 2.6%
• New South Wales – Down 0.2%

Coopers’ portfolio was expanded during the year with the limited releases of Hazy IPA and Australian IPA, while the brewer said the relaunch of Pacific Pale Ale appealed to fans of summer-style beer.

Homebrewers remained active globally, pushing export sales of DIY beer up by 31% while domestic sales moderated after the strong sales last year.

Australian barley in high demand

Strong demand for Coopers high quality malt, particularly from new and existing international customers across Asia, has the plant operating at near capacity.

It’s likely to be a similar scenario in 2022, due to global barley stockpiles being predicted to fall to their lowest in nearly 40 years, according to the Canadian Malting Barley Technical Centre.

The shortfall is due to severe drought in North America, which historically accounts for 20% of the world’s barley. The US barley crop fell from 3.5 million tonnes to 2.3 million tonnes while Canada’s barley harvest was 6.5 million tonnes, virtually half the original forecast.

Meanwhile, the European Union’s barley crop was hit by prolonged wet weather and the harvest shrank to its second smallest since 1968.