PETpla.net Insider 09 / 2013

EDITOUR REPORTS 19 PET planet insider Vol. 14 No. 09/13 February 25, 2013 UCP Backus y Johnston, S.A., Lima We met: Jorge Ayestas, Maria Contreras The best of a good bunch The most efficient CSD plant in the worldwide SAB Miller Group is in Lima; the Group’s second most efficient water plant in Peru. Both are part of the Backus Brewery. Here we met Jorge Ayestas and Maria Contreras who let us into some of the secrets of their success. One thing needs to be made clear from the start: Backus’ main business is beer. With a market share of more than 95% in Peru, it is difficult to ignore them and their product. Eleven years ago, in the course of imple- menting their beer expan- sion strategy, Backus also bought up a smaller brewer. Included in the package was a water and CSD operation in San Mateo (located at a height of 3300m above sea level and around two hours by car from Lima). Here optimum quality mineral water comes out of the ground. This subsequently helped Backus walk off with the international Golden Water Award from Brussels. In Peru, there is only one mineral water and that is the one trading under the San Mateo brand name. All the competitors operate with treated water. From the first tender shoots, two bottling plants have now emerged: the water continues to be bottled at source and CSD bottling takes place in Lima. Backus installed its new CSD plant in Lima in 2010 and it was then that the totally unforeseen boom began. Triggered by a lengthy strike at Coca Cola in 2011 and the ensuing delivery bottlenecks, many consumers switched to the Backus brands. It seems that they liked the taste so much that – even once Jorge Ayestas and Maria Contreras, both from Backus, standing on the zebra stripe. The zebra stripe separates the hall into SMI’s area (left) which is responsible for bottle production and the right hand side in which the actual bottling operation is located. 360°