Major Russian brewer Baltika’s head of global sales, Oleg Lazarenko, has declared that the business plans to use South Africa as a continental base and aim to export to that country.
At a meeting this week organised by the Russian Ministry of Agriculture and the Agroexport federal centre, to which representatives from South Africa were also invited, Lazarenko disclosed the plans.
According to Lazarenko, Baltika currently exports to more than 40 nations, but not yet South Africa. “We want to explore the South African market, select a trustworthy distributor, and work together to launch active beer sales from Russia in order to jointly market our brands and assist these sales,” he said.
“The next approach is to use South Africa as a logistics centre to supply beer to other markets in Africa,” he continued.
With eight breweries, Baltika is the top exporter of beer from Russia. It has a market share of more than 46% in domestic beer sales, or up to 1 billion litres a year, according to Lazarenko.
The Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, Sudan, Ethiopia, Uganda, Ghana, Tanzania, Cote d’Ivoire, Guinea, Benin, Burkina Faso, and Cameroon are among the countries to which the brewery currently exports beer.
Sergey Levin, the deputy minister of agriculture for Russia, announced on Tuesday that the value of agricultural products exchanged between Russia and South Africa between January and October was $530 million, an over 30% increase over the same time the previous year.
