BEERS | Heineken, the beer emporium that was created next to the Amsterdam canal

2023-07-09 16:39:01

When Gerard Adriaan Heineken bought a brewery in Amsterdam in 1864 at the age of 22, he could not imagine the trajectory that his venture has followed a century and a half later. Heineken is currently a multinational that employs 85,000 employees in 70 countries and has a portfolio of 300 brands and 80 varieties worldwide.. Specifically, in Spain it manages Cruzcampo, Amstel or el Águila, as well as Desperados, Ladrón de Manzanas or Paulaner. The company had net income of 6,378 million euros in the first quarter of the year, 9% more than in the same period of the previous year. Despite this, its net profit decreased by 3% to 417 million euros. The group recorded a strong reduction in sales in Vietnam and Nigeria, although it maintains growth forecasts for this year. In the case of Spain, the company has seen its net income skyrocket by 20% thanks to the sale of products such as its 0.0 or El Águila, a century-old brand relaunched in 2019. These numbers give an idea of ​​the power of the group that, In addition, it is a leader in its home market, that is, in the Netherlands. It’s hard to find a bar without Heineken in Amsterdam, and advertising for the drink is prominently displayed in the busiest pub areas of the city. With an annual beer production of 181.3 million hectoliters, the company is one of the largest producers in the world.

The official year of birth of the brand is located in 1873, the factory was located that year in a building that is today in the center of Amsterdam, next to the canal. This place was closed in 1988, although now it is one of the pilgrimage sites for tourists who visit the city. The company offers a tour of the premises to learn about the origins of its iconic beer for a price of 21 euros.

Word of mouth led the brand to become known in France at the beginning of the 20th century, something very unusual at that time without social networks and in which communications between countries were very difficult. Heineken’s great innovation was to use a bottom-fermenting yeast. In 1886 one of the chemists who worked for the brewery developed yeast A in the Heineken laboratory, an ingredient that is still the key to the current product and that, like the Coca-Cola formula, is secret. The successors of Gerard Heineken, his son Henry and his grandson Alfred, were the architects of the beer that had been gestated next to the Amsterdam canal began to be exported to places as far away from the Netherlands as the United States or Asia. Between the 80s and 90s the company strengthened its expansion in Europe. In the case of Spain, the brand launched Heineken Spain in the year 2000.

One of the levers on which the brand has relied throughout its history has been in Identify your product with leisure and relaxing moments. Freddy Heineken assured that he did not sell beer, but ‘gezelligheid’, a Dutch word that could be translated as “feeling of having a good time”. The brand wants to continue promoting this facet in the celebration of the 150th anniversary of the company’s foundation. As part of the marketing campaign deployed for the Spanish market, Heineken has recovered the famous ‘Think green’. “It worked very well in Spain. We used it in advertising campaigns in 1997 and 2009. It became a before and after for our positioning in Spain. Rarely is a slogan tangibly incorporated into people’s lives and conversations “, assured Veronica Sica, head of marketing for Heineken Spain, last week during a presentation with journalists in Amsterdam. As part of the celebration of this anniversary of the brand, the brewery has recovered the slogan in a limited edition of bottles and cans with the phrase ‘Here we say think green’.

Third largest brewer in Spain

Heineken has also become one of the main producers in Spain thanks to the purchase of brands such as Cruzcampo or El Águila. The Dutch multinational was the third with the most production last year, after the Spanish Mahou-San Miguel and Grupo Damm, and currently has four factories in Seville, Madrid, Valencia and Jaén. These centers produced 10.2 million hectoliters of beer.

In addition to promoting itself in Spain as a casual brand to be enjoyed at leisure such as festivals or football matches, another of the marketing levers on which the company relies is its firm commitment to Promote care for the environment through the use of renewable energy and the circular economy. If we land this idea, reference can be made to the fact that the company has announced an investment together with Siemens of 1,700 million in Spain to build a plant in 2025 that will produce one million metric tons per year of nitrogenous fertilizers with low carbon emissions with electricity. renewable and green hydrogen.

The fourth generation of the company, represented by the elusive Charlene Lucille de Carvalho-Heineken, is already at the controls. This woman is the richest in the Netherlands and one of the greatest fortunes in the world, but her figure goes completely unnoticed both in her country and abroad.. He does not grant interviews and hardly appears at public events. She has been a member of the company’s board of directors since 1988 and since then has shown full support for the sustainability agenda that the group has set for itself.

Related news

In fact, The Spanish subsidiary of Heineken wants to register zero emissions and waste in 2025, five years before the rest of the group worldwide. One project that has been carried out to facilitate this has been the construction of a solar thermal power generation plant in the Seville factory.

Carvalho-Heineken rejected in 2014 that the brewery merged with the giant SABMiller and used its shareholding position to frustrate the operation. “My responsibility is that the company continues to grow and pass it on to the next generation,” she said in statements at a forum with women entrepreneurs. Three of her five children are already part of the company’s board of directors. It seems that, for now, the Heineken family is prepared for the replacement of the fifth generation of that brewery that was created next to the Amsterdam canal.