OPINION: Who will benefit from the Carlsberg-Marston's-Britvic merger?

Thanks to all those who engaged with that debate about the future of our national drink.

As a reminder​, it concluded that in a thriving beer category there should be room for all beer styles. Cask beer has all the attributes to appeal to a young generation and is showing double-digit growth among local independent brewers but is unattractive to multinational brewers because it is unique to Britain and doesn’t fit a global footprint.

Businesses are free to make their choices but please don’t make it impossible for independent brewers to sell cask beer to the many who want to drink it.

The positive response to the article prompted me to take a deeper look into the forthcoming enlarged Carlsberg-Britvic business ​and ask, simply what will happen and who will benefit?

Lack of debate

I have been surprised with the lack of debate on this deal and, having worked in beer and soft drinks, I feel reasonably well qualified to kick it off.

The takeover announcement states that the new Carlsberg–Marston’s–Britvic company will “take advantage of the highly synergistic relationship between beer and soft drinks.”

Put simply, it will merge a global brewer that sells one in seven pints in the UK beer market (including the biggest brewer of cask beer) with a soft drinks manufacturer with over a third of the UK licensed trade soft drinks market. In other words, a dominant corporation that will cast a huge shadow over our sector.

In assessing this, ignore the more generic definition of ‘on-premise’ and focus specifically on UK pubs, clubs and bars. Why? Because, in soft drinks, much of the unlicensed on-premise listing decisions are made in the head offices of McDonald’s, Burger King, Subway and the global contract caterers like Compass.

Who wins? 

The UK on-licensed trade is where the impact of this deal will be most keenly felt, in the only outlets where it is legally possible to stock Pepsi alongside Carlsberg. The new consolidated company will control deliveries into those outlets, own both the beer and soft drinks dispense equipment that is essential for these drinks to be served and have a major stake in the company that services the kit when it breaks down.

It would be interesting to know how many licensed trade outlets stock Carlsberg and not Pepsi and visa-versa – remembering the stated aim of this new company is to “synergise” the two. Surely the only output would be to limit access to other suppliers of all sizes with products people want to buy.

The small brewers I speak to tell me that access to market is their single biggest barrier to growth. I also know first-hand how challenging innovation in soft drinks is, even for big companies.

I see no way that this newly formed foreign owned corporation would make either of those situations better. So who wins? The pubgoer? The small supplier? The larger supplier? Or the newly formed Danish-owned corporation?

You decide.