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Yanjing Brewery: Keeping on course for expansion

(beveragemanager.net) - It is a mere thirty-two years old and already the market leader in the largest market in the world – China: Yanjing Brewery in the capital city of Beijing.

As to be expected, the company is state-owned, but it operates its business according to global guidelines and today, only a comparatively few years after its founding, it has left its national boundaries and is now exporting to a number of markets, primarily the United States of America, Great Britain, Australia, and even Germany and other European countries.

The brewing operation employs 20,000 hourly and salaried workers in a brewery measuring a staggering 2,200,000 square meters. Yanjing is thus the largest brewery in China and one of the largest in the world.

The colossus of the East is today far and away the largest producer of beer in the world. Producing nearly 424 million hectoliters, China ranks considerably ahead of the United States, which produces only about 230 million hectoliters.

Since the founding of the brewery as a mid-sized company in 1980, average annual production has increased by more than 33% per year; sales have increased by almost 41%; and profits have increased by a gigantic 45%. These figures are impressive evidence that Yanjing is today a very significant business in the Peoples’ Republic of China and numbers among the “top players” in the Middle Kingdom.

In all, Yanjing comprises today 31 operations, including 21 breweries, primarily in North, East, Northwest, and South China. Its importance grew from a “small-scale brewery” in 1980 to a “nationwide large-scale enterprise” in 2011.

During this entire time, investments were made continuously in the newest technologies. Thanks to these continuous investments in technology and the associated cost optimizations with a simultaneous increase in quality, Yanjing ranks today as the most profitable brewery in the country.