Sales in Finland grow by less than one per cent in spite of the warm end of summer

A total of 592.9 million litres of brewery beverages were sold in January-September 2014. Total sales in Finland grew by 5.5 million litres, or 0.9 per cent. Only the sales of mineral waters saw moderate growth, 7.7 per cent. However, mineral waters only account for less than one-tenth of brewery beverage sales. Sales of beer, cider, long drinks and soft drinks remained almost unchanged. These figures are based on sales statistics compiled by members of the Federation of the Brewing and Soft Drinks Industry.

Members of the Federation of the Brewing and Soft Drinks Industry sold a total of 296.9 million litres of beer in January-September 2014. Sales remained virtually on a par with the previous year. Total sales of long drinks amounted to 30.7 million litres, up 1.3 per cent, and sales of ciders to 24.4 million litres, down 0.7 per cent. Soft drink sales amounted to 183.3 million litres, up 0.6 per cent, and mineral water sales to 57.6 million litres, an increase of 7.7 per cent.

“Both the end of the summer and autumn were warm, balancing out weak sales in the first half of the year – but not even the excellent weather could increase sales further. A share of beverage sales has been permanently replaced by travellers’ private imports from Estonia. In the last official survey of travellers’ imports, beer and cider imports had once again increased substantially,” says Elina Ussa, Managing Director of the Federation of the Brewing and Soft Drinks Industry.

Domestic sales plummeted in early 2014 due to the introduction of alcohol and soft drink tax hikes. Finland has the highest excise taxes on all brewery products in the EU. In addition to high taxes, the Finnish brewing industry will be burdened by the new restrictions on alcohol advertising that will come into force at the beginning of 2015.

“These restrictions force the industry to prepare itself to face greater price competition in Finland. Price competition will skew the beverage market, leading to a loss of diversity and the development of the wrong kind of beer-drinking culture. The advertising restrictions target Finnish businesses in particular. Foreign players can still freely advertise their products on social media, whereas Finnish companies must censor consumers’ comments,” says Ussa.

Ussa adds: “The government should be thinking about what can be done to safeguard jobs in the Finnish brewing industry and increase consumers’ purchasing power. As the situation now stands, further burdens are constantly being imposed on domestic industry on many fronts.”

DOMESTIC SALES 1 Jan. 2014−30 Sep. 2014

Source: Member companies of the Federation of the Brewing and Soft Drinks Industry: Captol Invest, Hartwall, Nokian Panimo, Olvi, Red Bull, Saimaan Juomatehdas and Sinebrychoff. The statistics do not include sales by actors outside the Federation nor private imports of brewery products, which are not statistically recorded. As of the beginning of 2011, the statistics include all the brands of the members of the Federation of the Brewing and Soft Drinks Industry and any private label brands they produce.

Additional information:
Managing Director Elina Ussa, tel. +358 (0)45 269 7711
Communications Manager Outi Heikkinen, tel. +358 (0)50 370 8677

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