Madeleine Wackernagel
REAL men don’t drink beer anymore – at least not in the quantities they used to. Nowadays even lager louts appreciate a fresher taste. That’s the message from HP Bulmer, Britain’s biggest and oldest cider manufacturer, which is bringing its premium brand, Scrumpy Jack, to the South African market.
Available initially only on tap in pubs, the beverage will be imported in kegs, with a bottled version following later in the year. With the rapid growth of the Anglo/Irish pub trade, says Paul Siviter, international marketing director of HPBulmer, a target of 250 pub accounts by August or September is feasible.
Between them, Stellenbosch Farmers’ Wineries (SFW) and South African Breweries (SAB) have the market sewn up. SFW’s share, dominated by Crown and Hunter’s Gold, is about 80% and SAB recently weighed in with Redd’s.
Siviter, however, is undaunted: “Launching on draught represents a substantial investment – but it’s critical to the overall strategy to develop Scrumpy Jack into the leading premium cider in South Africa.
“SAB’s distribution muscle is too great to take on across the board, so it makes better sense to cultivate the premium end of the market, hence Scrumpy Jack, which has always been sold as a high-quality product.
“We’ve got 25 000 outlets in Britain; we’re not looking at the same here yet – but we’ll get there one day.”
Local law is harsh on cider makers – South Africa is the only country where to qualify as cider the alcohol content must be sourced only from the apples, not in the fermentation process, which explains the proliferation of “apple-based” drinks that aren’t anything like the real thing. Bulmer has had to develop a special recipe to qualify, adding to the expense of setting up operations here.
Siviter is undeterred. “This market is second only to Britain in terms of consumption of apple-based alcoholic drinks, with sales of about 125-million litres/year. So it makes sense to want a slice of the pie. Our second-phase plan is to import in bulk and repackage, then depending on how things go, we will consider setting up a manufacturing operation, importing only the apple pulp from Britain.” This is because the apples that give cider that distinctive bitter- sweet taste only grow in Herefordshire, England. But some local varieties might be considered.
Bulmer’s initial investment is about R2- million. It has set up a partnership with Bavaria Bru, another niche player with two specialist beers and the distributorship for Two Dogs, the Australian alcoholic lemonade, and Sirocco, an alcoholic soda.