Import expert

With a truly international portfolio of beers, Ubevco has rapidly become a brand builder of some repute. Ben McFarland reports.

For overseas beer brand owners, the UK pub market can appear a rather daunting prospect. Unless you're armed with a fistful of marketing spend, an all-powerful global brand name or a masonic handshake with an owner of a big pub company, getting drinks stocked behind the bar of a British pub can be a bit of a head-scratcher.

In an attempt to get their foot in the fridge door or a spot on the back-bar in an increasingly tough beer market, some brands choose to go it alone, some team up with regional or national brewers while others opt to join forces with UK-based drinks agencies.

Ubevco, a company that specialises in building genuine imported beer brands, is an example of the latter. The name of Ubevco's game is brand building and not, as is often mistakenly assumed, delivering cases of beer to the pub doorstep. "We don't do trucks, we don't do warehouses and we don't do deliveries," proclaims Philip Parker, marketing director. "Our speciality and expertise is that we know how to successfully sell and market beer brands."

From its rather swanky office in Dorking, Surrey, Ubevco has masterminded the expansion of a number of international bottled brands and its portfolio is a veritable melting pot of premium brews sourced, and importantly brewed, from all around the world.

The company is home to four of the top 10 brands in an imported beer sector that Philip believes will continue to grow.

"If you speak to drinkers, they really do have a genuine interest in experiencing brands from around the world and expanding their repertoire," he says. "It is also important to them that the brand is genuinely imported. We think that the genuine imported category is undervalued. The UK is the only marketplace where there's no differentiation or added value for imports despite the fact that everyone knows it costs more."

Although Ubevco is a relatively young company, founded in 1996, the board of directors is flush with experience in building brands from scratch, ranging from Foster's to Red Bull and Miller's Genuine Draft to Snapple. On the ground, Ubevco gives its sales team the mission of developing individual accounts and then targeting the wholesaler that delivers to those particular outlets.

"We persuade the wholesaler that we're an educated and passionate extension of their sales force," adds Richard Cattell, Ubevco's head of marketing. "We're not wholesalers - we're in the business of building brands and proactively going out and encouraging pull-through at the sharp end of the market. The reason that people pick us is that we can provide the supply network, contacts and market expertise that the vast majority of brand owners couldn't afford to set up on their own."

It was within the top-end bar arena that Ubevco first laid the foundations for Red Bull, one of the drinks industry's biggest successes in recent years. In cahoots with brand guru Harry Drnec, who also spearheaded Sol's success in the 1980s with the famous lime wedge in a bottle, Ubevco developed Red Bull from an unknown niche energy drink from Austria into an ultra-hip and sought after cult brand.

In 1998, however, Ubevco became a victim of its own success when Red Bull decided to go it alone and a number of employees followed, making the trip from Dorking to Soho. Red Bull's departure led to a dip in growth for Ubevco.

"There's always that threat to our business," admits Philip. "As we develop and grow the brand there will always come a point when it makes sense for the brand owner to take it on themselves."

Ushering brands from a niche position to the fringes of the mainstream market, and perhaps beyond, is the task facing Ubevco with its current legion of foreign beers and the brands are at various stages of development. While it's all very well establishing foreign players in the beer market, would Ubevco ever take on the challenge of making a British ale trendy?

"We're always looking to upgrade our portfolio and we would do it if we felt it had the potential to compete on a national scale," says Philip. "To develop a regional brand nationally is very difficult in the on-trade."

The future's looking rosy with the imported speciality beer sector the fastest growing sector in the UK beer market and, according to market boffins Mintel, 10 per cent of drinkers are on the look-out for lagers with authentic heritage. Industry observers predict that, if the market follows predicted growth patterns, by 2007 these drinkers will be worth more than £1.25bn.

"Our opportunity is to drive people into this sector and educate them in the same way that wine, for example, has drilled its ethos into the consumer over the years," says Philip. "Drinkers are still unaware that global beers can provide a wealth of different tastes and flavours."

The beers​

• Tiger​

Arguably Ubevco's most well-known brand, and its official biggest seller, is Tiger from Singapore. "When we first took it on six years ago we couldn't give it away," says Tiger Beer brand manager Toby Scourse. "But now the UK is Tiger's biggest market outside the Far East."

The brand has recently been given a new look while the launch of a 500ml bottle and a link-up with Asian restaurant chain Wagamama is designed to position the brand more effectively with food.

Sol​

Plans are afoot to restore Sol to something near its late 1980s heyday when drinking it with a lime in the bottle was all the rage. "It's now shed its 80s cliché and the Mexican beer category has moved away from just Tex-Mex," says brand manager Zoe Smith.

Dos Equis​

Dos Equis, the sister and lesser known brand to Sol, is available in both amber and lager variants and geared towards bars looking for "something a bit different to the mainstream brands".

Castle Lager​

Castle Lager from South Africa has set its sights on sports bars and clubs as it looks to leverage its close relationship with the South African rugby and cricket teams.

Pilsner Urquell​

Ubevco's grand masterplan for Pilsner Urquell is to establish it at the forefront of a thriving Czech beer category. The brand is developing a strong presence at outlets where a premium is placed on authenticity and heritage.

Bierra Moretti​

Heineken has recruited Ubevco to help distribute Italy's number two brand beyond its traditional pizza restaurant base. Italians regard it as the Rolls-Royce of beers, according to Philip Parker.

"We think there's a massive opportunity in pubs and bars," he adds.

Ubevco​

• Launched:​ 1996
• Board of directors:​ Dennis Miller, Catherine Blackburn, Chris Gordon, Philip Parker
• Employees:​ 60
• Brands:​ Pilsner Urquell, Tiger, Sol, Dos Equis, Castle, Birra Moretti, Tropical Ryhthms
• Turnover '03:​ £31m
• Telephone:​ 01306 880028
• Website:​ www.ubevco.co.uk