Philippines & USA: San Miguel Brewery to build its first US brewery
San Miguel Brewery Inc., a joint venture between San Miguel Corp. and Kirin Holdings Company Ltd. of Japan, plans to build a $150-million brewery in Los Angles, California, The Standard reported on May 30.
SMB chairman Ramon Ang said in an interview at the sidelines of the annual stockholders’ meeting the company was also looking at spending $500 million over the next two and a half years to build two new beer plants and expand the capacity of all existing bottling plants.
Ang said he would leave for the United States in June to finalize the acquisition of a Los Angeles property for the planned facility.
The US plant, which will be the first SMB facility in the US, will have a capacity to produce 2 million hectoliters (200 million liters) and will be situated in a 10-hectare property.
Ang said the company planned to build the Los Angeles facility to meet rising demand.
“The reason why we are going to build a brewery in the US is because the volume of exports today in America can now warrant us to put up the brewery to support that volume,” Ang said.
San Miguel Brewery also has plants and facilities in Thailand, Indonesia, China, Hong Kong and Vietnam. The international plants have a combined capacity of 7.81 million hectoliters.
The company, which currently accounts for 9 of 10 beers sold in the Philippines, also plans to build two new breweries in Cagayan de Oro and Iloilo. Each plant will have capacity of 2 million hectoliters.
SMB also has beer facilities in Bacold, Davao, Cebu, Valenzuela and Pampanga. The company is set to expand the capacity of all existing bottling plants in Laguna, Bicol and Isabela.
Ang said the company was expanding the production capacity because all plants were currently operating at 95-percent utilization rate, or near full utilization.
The domestic plants have a total production capacity of more than 16 million hectoliters.
San Miguel also expressed interest in bidding for Saigon Beer Alcohol Beverage Corp. Saigon Beer is Vietnam’s largest brewer with a 40-percent market share.
SMB registered a net income of P4.5 billion in the first quarter, up by 12 percent from a year ago. Consolidated revenues increased 9 percent to P25.4 billion while operating income rose 10 percent to P6.7 billion. Volumes reached 58.6 million cases, up 2 percent from a year earlier.
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