Beck's beer planning a comeback

Beck's beer is back.

After a four-year absence from the Taiwan market, the German beer is staging a comeback and hopes to become one of the top three imported brands with the next year.

According to Vincent Wang (王得進), a marketing and sales coordinator for Beck's in Taiwan, the company is working with Tait Marketing & Distribution Co (德記洋行).

"I have every confidence in the brand's ability to [rebuild] its popularity in this country," Wang said yesterday.

The most-recognized German beer internationally, Beck's has a presence in more than 120 countries. The brand came to Taiwan in the early 1990s.

In 1995, Beck's sold four million 12-packs -- or 96 million 330ml cans -- making it the No. 2 imported brand in the country, Wang said.

But after switching local agents twice in 1998, sales of the beer began to slide, eventually forcing Beck's from the market.

"We changed our local dealers, but it appeared that we made the wrong picks to sell our beer," Wang said, blaming the pull-out on the local dealers' lack of experience in selling alcoholic beverages.

Wang said that with Tait -- a consumer goods distributor that markets groceries, personal care products, beverages and wines -- Beck's should manage to sell between 400,000 and 500,000 12-packs this year.

The return of Beck's into the nation's beer market is one of the first by Interbrew of Belgium, which announced the acquisition of Beck & Co of Germany in February, Wang said.

Ed Shyurng (熊震寰), chief executive officer of Tait, said yesterday that the company plans to distribute other brands for Interbrew in the future.

Beck's should also provide some competition for the No. 1 brew in the land -- Taiwan Beer -- produced by the state-controlled Taiwan Tobacco and Wine Board (公賣局).

"The beer market is definitely going to heat up this year after Taiwan's accession into the World Trade Organization," said Wei Yao-hsuan (魏垚萱), the board's spokesman. "But we will work our best to keep our market share above 80 percent here."

Taiwan Beer is nearly 20 percent cheaper than other brands. Because it's brewed domestically, Taiwan Beer is fresher than imported brands, which can easily become stale during delivery.

But Shyurng said Taiwan Beer will not be king forever.

"What we had in the past was unfair competition by Taiwan Tobacco. Now the situation has changed and the consumer will know what a good beer stands for," he said.

With more than a dozen foreign beer brands on store shelves, Shyurng expects the domestic market to consolidate during the next three years.

"The market is not saturated and will not be saturated," Shyurng said. "But there are really too many brands here and some weaker brands must go."