Cobra Beer
| Cobra Beer Partnership Ltd
|
|
|---|---|
 |
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| legal form | Partnership Ltd |
| founding | 1989 |
| Seat | Fulham , UK |
| management | Adrian McKeon ( CEO ) |
| sales | £ 45m (FY 2006/2007) |
| Website | www.cobrabeer.com |
Cobra Beer is a British beer publisher . The company was founded in 1989 by Arjun Reddy and Karan Bilimoria, then 27, with a starting capital of £ 20,000. It was initially based in the Indian city of Bangalore and geared towards export to the United Kingdom. Today there are contractual offices in India, Great Britain and Belgium . Cobra Beer does not own any independent breweries and instead produces its brands under licenses in other breweries. Bilimoria and Reddy had discovered and exploited a niche in the market for low- carbon lager beers . Originally the brewery was to be named Panther ; However, it turned out in surveys that this term was not particularly popular in the target group, which is why they agreed on Cobra . Through Reddy's uncle Keshow Reddy, contact was made with the Mysore Breweries, which initially took over the brewing. Until 1997, the Cobra beers brewed in India were exported exclusively to Great Britain, then production was relocated to England, where the Charles Wells brewery (now Wells & Young's) in Bedford took over the production license. A special feature of the beer is that it can be easily combined with curry dishes , which is intended to emphasize the Indian origin and is one of the most important advertising messages.
In fiscal 2006, the company made a loss of just under £ 4,000,000 after tax, which more than tripled in the following year, although sales rose at the same time. The reason for these economic problems is often the expansion policy that ran counter to the British beer market and which ultimately became unsustainable for the brewery. Debt was £ 26,000,000 and there were venture capitalists interested in rapidly growing returns. Sales increased 21% for the six months between August 1, 2008 and January 31, 2009, but bankruptcy was declared on May 29, 2009 as outstanding supplier accounts now totaled £ 75,000,000. To solve the problems, the US-Canadian brewing company Molson Coors Brewing Company bought 50.1% of the shares in Cobra Beer for £ 14,000,000 and is now part of a holding company.
Cobra Beer quickly developed into an extremely popular type of beer, is exported to over 50 countries and, for example, is offered in almost 6000 restaurants and just as many pubs and bars in Great Britain as well as in all wholesale supermarkets and licensed chains. Despite the financial crisis, the brewery is still one of the fastest growing in the British Isles.
| Fiscal year | Sales in £ | Profit / Loss in £ |
|---|---|---|
| 2004/2005 | 24,389,000 | 905.853 
|
| 2005/2006 | 30,300,000 | 3,929,834 
|
| 2006/2007 | 45,000,000 | 13,600,000
|
From 2003 onwards, Cobra Beer also had Poland-based Browar Belgia brewed in order to gain a foothold on the continental European market. Four years later, however, the majority of the focus was on Great Britain and the license partners there for cost reasons. In 2008, contracts were signed with Camerons in Hartlepool and Quinn Glass for bottling . After the takeover by the Molson Coors Brewing Company, the production and bottling of 5.0% Premium takes place in their brewery headquarters in Burton-upon-Trent . The brewers for Zero% and King Cobra remained unchanged and Quinn Glass is still responsible for bottling Zero%. In India, Cobra Beer is under the brewing license of the Mount Shivalik Group.
Cobra Beer has received numerous awards over the years. In 2003 the brewery won the “Business of the Year” award at the annual Eastern Eye Asian Business Awards. Two years later, Monde Selection (International Institute for Quality Selections) presented the company with 13 medals, eleven gold medals and in 2008 a total of 19 medals.
CobraVision Short Film Competition
In 2005, Cobra Beer launched the CobraVision Short Film Competition. This competition was intended to offer young, ambitious directors the opportunity to show their short films during the commercial breaks for the feature films on the ITV2 , ITV3 and ITV4 channels . Ten 5-second films were broadcast before a 50-second format was introduced in 2007. The productions contained therein were shown directly before films on ITV4. Every month the best films were chosen by the audience and at the end of the year the CobraVision Awards were celebrated. In 2008 CobraVision was dissolved and the brewery's sponsorship activities for the three television channels were also discontinued. However, there is still support from the British film industry as Cobra Beer is an official partner of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts and the British Film Institute .
Brands
Cobra Beer currently has five varieties:
- Cobra Premium: The brewery's main brand with traditional Indian ingredients such as corn and rice and an alcohol content of 4.8 % vol. For the bottled beer and 4.3% for the draft beer . According to the company, the beer has the "smoothness of an ale and the freshness of a lager".
- Cobra Zero%: Alcohol-free beer with a slightly sweet note, which is bottled in 330 milliliter bottles.
- King Cobra: The world's first double fermented lager with 7.8 % vol. Is bottled in bottles similar to those used for champagne and is available in sizes 750 and 375 milliliters.
- Malabar: An IPA ( India Pale Ale ) with 4.7% alcohol.
- Cobra Gluten Free: A gluten-free variant of the Cobra Premium.
Web links
- Jonathan Sibun: “Molson Coors downs Cobra Beer in £ 14m pre-pack” in telegraph.co.uk ( The Daily Telegraph ). Accessed February 17, 2010