Kirin Beer
| Kirin Beer
|
|
|---|---|
 |
|
| legal form | Kabushiki-gaisha (joint stock company) |
| founding | 1885 |
| Seat |
Nakano , Japan
|
| Number of employees | 3501 |
| Branch | brewery |
| Website | http://www.kirin.co.jp/ |
| As of December 31, 2008 | |
The Kirin Beer KK ( Jap. 麒麟麦酒株式会社 , Kirin Biru Kabushiki-gaisha , Eng. Kirin Brewery Company, Limited ) is a Japanese brewery group. The company is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the beverage manufacturer KK Kirin , which in turn is part of the KK Kirin Holdings , which is part of the Mitsubishi Group.
For a long time, Kirin was the leader in the Japanese beer market, but was overtaken by its arch-rival Asahi shortly after the turn of the millennium . Even so, Kirin still sells two of the most popular beers in Japan today . These are Kirin Lager , the oldest beer brand in the country, and Ichiban Shibori . Kirin Tanrei is the market leader in the field of low-malt beers ( 発 泡酒 happōshu ), which have a maximum malt content of 67 percent and (for tax reasons) represent a growing market . Kirin also takes on the distribution of some foreign beers such as Budweiser and Heineken . Kirin can also be acquired outside of Japan. The company is represented by strategic alliances and subsidiaries in China , Taiwan , Australia , the Philippines , Europe and the USA . The company has a 46 percent stake in the Australian brewery Lion Nathan , which also produces for the Chinese market, and holds a 15 percent stake in the leading Filipino brewery San Miguel Corporation . Kirin's knowledge of fermentation , drawn from over a century of brewing experience, is now being applied in other areas, including plant genetics , medicines, and biotechnology .
The brewery organizes the Kirin Cup , an annual football tournament.
history
The Norwegian Johan Martinius Thoresen (born May 18, 1834 in Aust-Agder ), who had become an American citizen as William Copeland , emigrated to Yokohama in 1864 and was able to become a Japanese citizen since the closure of Japan was over. First he set up a haulage company and later a dairy, but Copeland had only moderate success. In 1869, Copeland finally opened the Spring Valley Brewery , the only notable brewery in Japan at the time. In 1872 he left the country for a short time in search of a bride , but his wife died in 1879. In 1884 Copeland closed the brewery and left Japan again because, in his own opinion, he did not have enough capital to expand sales. He then returned to the USA. A year later, British - English entrepreneurs WH Talbot and E. Abbott reopened the Copelands brewery with the help of Scottish Thomas Blake Glover. They were supported by the Japanese businessmen Yonosuke Iwasaki and Eiichi Shibusawa. The newly founded Japan Brewery Company, Ltd. soon to be a profitable company. The company used the Kirin name since 1888 . The Japanese-Chinese mythical creature Kirin is half horse and half dragon and is considered a symbol of luck.
All in all, there were initially many foreigners at the company, above all Americans and British in management positions and German technicians to oversee the brewing process. In 1907, Kirin became an entirely Japanese company under its current name, as it was acquired by Mitsubishi and thus belonged to the Keiretsu Mitsubishis. Soon after, Kirin began to expand rapidly and took over the Toyo Tozo Company , and the company also built another brewery in Amagasaki . During the Kantō earthquake , the facilities in Yokohama, including the main brewery, were destroyed, but rebuilt a little later.
During World War II , state control of all breweries increased, as a result of which Kirin beer sales dropped dramatically. Nevertheless, during this time Kirin began to build and maintain research and development facilities, and efforts in this regard continued after the war, especially as sales figures improved again. In 1954 Kirin became the market leader in Japan with a market share of 37.1 percent, but mainly because the US occupiers split the Dai Nippon Brewery into two regional companies, namely Asahi Beer, Ltd. and Nippon Breweries, Ltd., making Kirin the last brewery to be represented in the entire national territory of Japan. In the late 1950s, beer was even more popular than sake , which was previously Japan's most popular drink. In the 1960s and 1970s, Kirin beer even had a market share of around 60 percent, the record high was in 1977, whereupon production and advertising restrictions had to be implemented, as a possible classification as a cartel threatened.
In the early 1970s, Kirin's management decided to invest in other areas as well. A partnership was entered into with Joseph E. Seagram & Sons Inc. , Kirin-Seagram Ltd. Robert Brown produced scotch whiskey in Japan . In addition to Robert Brown , the first brewery in Japan to own a distillery at the foot of Mount Fuji also produced the whiskey brands Crescent , Emblem and News . In addition, non-alcoholic drinks were now also offered. The US subsidiary KW, Inc. (later known as The Coca-Cola Bottling Company of Northern New England, Inc.) bottled Coca-Cola in New England and also sold the bottles. It was also during this time that the first medicines were brought onto the market by Kirin.
From the late 1980s, Kirin's competitor Asahi began producing Asahi Super Dry, which quickly became very popular and became the most popular beer in Japan in 1996, even before Kirin lager, because Kirin did not react quickly enough to changes in beer consumption. In 1989 the beer Kirin Light was introduced, in 1990 Kirin Ichiban Shibori and in 1998 the Happoshu (low-malt) Kirin Tanrei . In 1993, Kirin and Anheuser-Busch Companies founded the Budweiser Japan Co. joint venture for the distribution of Budweiser in Japan, which was replaced in 2000 by license agreements. In April 1998 Kirin acquired a 45 percent stake in the Australian-New Zealand brewery Lion Nathan Limited. In that year Kirin also brought his first Chuhai drink, Kirin Chu-hi Hyoketsu , (similar to an alcopop , with Shōchū as the alcoholic component) on the market.
In February 2001, Kirin finally lost its supremacy in the Japanese beer market to Asahi. The first low-price beer to be marketed outside of Japan under the Kirin name was the Kirin Bar Beer in Taiwan , marketed by Kirin and Lion Nathan. Kirin's subsidiary Kirin Beverage Corporation , the French group Danone and the Mitsubishi Corporation founded the joint venture Kirin MC Danone Waters Co., Ltd. in November 2002 . to found a strong mineral water company in Japan. In 2011 Kirin expanded to South America and took over the second largest beverage producer in Brazil, Schincariol. The company was renamed Brasil Kirin .
Kirin Ichiban beer
The best-known product of the group is the Kirin Ichiban beer. Because of the high transport costs, Kirin did not initially sell its beer abroad, but in 1984 an agreement was signed with the Dutch brewery Heineken , which was allowed to produce Kirin for the Dutch market. In return, Kirin produced Heineken beer for the Japanese market. In the USA there was initially the Cherry Company Ltd. in Hawaii , which was a wholly owned subsidiary of the company and took over the distribution of Kirin, in 1983 the Kirin USA, Inc. was founded with headquarters in New York . Other licensed breweries are z. B. Brasil Kirin, in Brazil and the Bavarian State Brewery Weihenstephan in Germany.
Web links
- Kirin Holdings Official Website (Japanese, English, Chinese)
- Kirin Beer Brand Official Website (Japanese)
Individual evidence
- ^ Gilbert Delos: Les Whiskeys du Monde. Translation from French: Karin-Jutta Hofmann: Whiskey from all over the world. Karl Müller, Erlangen 1998, ISBN 3-86070-442-7 , p. 154 ( Kirin-Seagram )
- ↑ Brands. ( Memento of the original from December 13, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. brasilkirin.com; Retrieved December 11, 2014
- ↑ Kirin President as a guest in Weihenstephan. merkur-online.de; Retrieved December 11, 2014
