A year of overcoming waves with the food and beverage industry

Vietnam Report Joint Stock Company has just announced the Top 10 prestigious companies in the food and beverage industry in 2024. The ranking is published annually, based on scientific and objective principles with 3 main criteria: financial capacity; Media reputation; Survey of research subjects and stakeholders.

According to Vietnam Report, 2023 is considered a challenging year for the Vietnamese Food and Beverage industry due to many impacts from the macroeconomic situation.

These difficulties are clearly shown in the beer market due to fluctuations in raw material prices due to disruptions in the global supply chain; rising inflation and interest rates, consumers cutting back on spending; and tightening of some related policy tools. According to the General Statistics Office of Vietnam, beer consumption in Vietnam has decreased sharply in the second half of 2023.

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Sabeco's Saigon Beer production line

In the above difficult situation, Mr. Lester Tan, General Director of Sabeco, once shared: "We cannot wait for the rain to stop, the wind to calm down, instead we must take action to respond. We must learn to dance in the rain."

In fact, Sabeco has taken practical action by focusing on promoting three areas including: Commercial Excellence, Supply Chain Efficiency and ESG (Environment - Society - Governance) initiatives.

In order to optimize commercial activities, Sabeco successfully organized many cultural and culinary events such as Vung Tau Beer Festival (Vung Tau Beerfest), Chill Fest music festival, "Star of all fun" music competition, and the Giap Thin Tet campaign "Welcome the Dragon Year, Get more fortune". These activities help increase connections with customers, local distributors and partners, contributing to boosting sales revenue.

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Rooftop solar panel system at Saigon Quang Ngai Beer Factory

To improve the efficiency of the supply chain, the company has simultaneously implemented many initiatives to help save costs, improve production efficiency and product quality. Along with that, to ensure that business and production activities are carried out in accordance with ESG goals, Sabeco has established a Nomination and Compensation Committee and a Sustainable Development and Risk Management Committee; and installed solar power systems at 17/26 beer factories in the system.

Activities demonstrating Sabeco's responsibility to the community are also invested in to promote the creation of positive socio-economic values ​​such as "Lighting up the countryside" - completing 73km of solar street lights in 63 provinces and cities in Vietnam and "Enhancing sports" - upgrading 30 community sports fields in 30 provinces and cities nationwide.

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Sabeco employees join in relief efforts after Typhoon Yagi in Lao Cai

Recently, in solidarity with the whole country towards the North affected by storm Yagi, Sabeco coordinated with the Central Youth Union to support more than 4.2 billion VND to help 6 provinces overcome the consequences of natural disasters, including Bac Kan, Cao Bang, Lao Cai, Thai Nguyen, Tuyen Quang and Yen Bai.

With persistent efforts towards sustainable development, in the second quarter of 2024, Sabeco began to reap the "sweet fruits" with revenue reaching VND 8,086.3 billion, equal to 97.3% compared to the same period and profit after tax increased by 9%, to VND 1,318.9 billion. This is the highest profit in the last 7 consecutive quarters that Sabeco has recorded.

At the same time, Sabeco was also recognized in many prestigious awards such as "List of 50 best listed companies" in 2024 by Forbes Vietnam; Top 500 largest companies in Southeast Asia (Fortune Southeast Asia 500) by Fortune Magazine, Top 100 Sustainable Development Enterprises in 2023; Top 12 companies awarded the Certificate of Board of Directors' commitment to good corporate governance practices by the Institute of Directors (VIOD);...

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Saigon Cu Chi Beer Factory

New expectations

Vietnam Report's report stated that in 2024, Vietnam's economy is forecast to have positive signs of recovery with an estimated growth rate of 5.5%, according to the expectations of 37.5% of businesses participating in Vietnam Report's survey.

Sabeco's leaders also assessed that 2024 will continue to bring "golden" opportunities for the Vietnamese beer industry for three reasons: golden population structure, rapidly increasing income; great potential of the "non-alcoholic beer" segment and potential for export markets.

Based on the context and forecasts of the world and Vietnam economic situation, Sabeco aims to increase business growth in 2024, while promoting effective commercial and production activities along with actions towards sustainable development.

Accordingly, in 2024, Sabeco plans to have revenue of VND 34,397 billion, an increase of 12.9%; expected profit after tax of VND 4,580 billion, an increase of 7.6% compared to the implementation in 2023. Three key areas including: Optimizing commercial activities, Supply chain efficiency and ESG continue to be the main pillars to help the company achieve the expected goals.

Top 10 Reputable Companies in the Food and Beverage Industry is the result of an independent research by Vietnam Report published in 2017. Since 2012, Vietnam Report has used the Media Coding method (encoding press data) to calculate the reputation score of businesses in the media.

After 149 years of establishment and development in the beverage industry, Sabeco's national system currently includes 26 factories, 11 member trading companies and a network of hundreds of thousands of points of sale across the country. Sabeco owns a portfolio of beer brands loved by Vietnamese consumers such as Lac Viet Beer, Saigon Chill Beer, 333 Beer, Saigon Special Beer, Saigon Export Beer, Saigon Lager Beer and Saigon Gold Beer.

Thanh Truc