Budvar UK sales up 5% in April

By Roger Protz & Gemma McKenna

- Last updated on GMT

Related tags ?eské bud?jovice Budweiser budvar

Budvar: sales up 5% in April
Budvar: sales up 5% in April
Budvar UK has reported a 5% increase in sales for April on last year, thanks to the good weather.

Budvar UK has reported a 5% increase in sales for April on last year.

UK sales & marketing director Neville Hall attributed the success to good weather and the fact that "the on-trade was particularly buoyant in draught beer".

He said the firm was ahead of the market, which had dwindled 9% in the same period.

The news comes as parent company Budweiser Budvar begins work on a new £2.9m storage facility at its Czech headquarters and denied reports it will purchase a rival brewer in its hometown of Ceske Budejovice.

The warehouse will house 2.4m bottles of beer, and the firm's brewing and technical director Adam Broz, said its main objectives were to improve effectiveness and increase capacity of the warehouse "in order to respond more flexibly to customers' orders". The new system will be tested in October 2009.

The brewery is now supplying unpasteurised beer to bars and restaurants in the Czech Republic that have a fast turnover of sales.

Meanwhile, rival firm, the Mestansky or "Citizen's Brewery", faces possible closure. It is on the market at 1.5bn Czech crowns or £50m. The price is considered high and Budvar has said it's not interested in buying the company at that price.

Beer volumes at the Mestansky Brewery have fallen to 150,000 hectolitres a year — Budvar's are now 1.3m hectolitres — and it is not profitable.

It brews own-label brands for Tesco and Waitrose in Britain. If a buyer cannot be found for the Mestansky brewery, it may ask the Czech government to take it back under state control.

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