Coca-Cola Europacific Partners Australia (CCEP) is selling its share of Australian Beer Co. (ABCo) to its joint venture (JV) partner Casella Family Brands (CFB).
The decision is the second step in CCEP’s exit from the production, sale, and distribution of beer and Magners ciders in Australia, which it announced in October last year.
Vice president & general manager Australia, Pacific & Indonesia Peter West said the beer and cider business would need significant over-investment to accelerate scale, which would be at the expense of other categories. Its core spirits, alcohol ready-to-drink and non-alcohol ready-to-drink portfolios had much greater scope for category growth, West said.
West said the launch of the ABCo joint venture in 2013, located next door to CFB’s Yenda winery in New South Wales’ Riverina district, marked the re-entry of the business into the beer market.
ABCo is a scale producer with the site producing more than 2.5 million cases per year. It has a flexible manufacturing set-up that produces bottles, cans, and kegs across a range of beer, cider and RTD spirits brands.
As well as producing its own brand portfolio such as Yenda beer, Alehouse beer and Pressmans cider, ABCo also contract produces for other brand owners.
“Casella Family Brands is a highly respected partner, and when we approached them as part of our strategic review of our beer and cider strategy, John and his team were keen to explore the opportunity to take full ownership of ABCo.
“We have had a terrific partnership with Casella for almost a decade now and exit on good terms,” added West. “We genuinely wish them the very best for the future.”
CFB managing director John Casella said the company welcomed the chance for full ownership.
Casella is Australia’s largest family-owned winery, best known for its Yellow Tail brand. It bought South Australian Barossa winery Peter Lehmann Wines in 2014, Morris of Rutherglen in 2016, and Shaw Family Vintners in 2017.
Casella’s Yenda winery has a working area of 95 acres, can store more than 260 million litres of wine, and also works with micro producers in the region.
Casella said CFB would continue to maintain the relationships CCEP had developed with customers in the beer and cider category. CCEP had been the long-term distributor for ABCo since the JV began.
“We both leave the joint venture arrangement on excellent terms,” Cassella said.
Casella Family Brands will take over full ownership of ABCo from 1 July 2022
