As the mainland overtakes the United States as the world's biggest beer-drinking nation, one of its top brewers has announced a plan to create a national brand to challenge the supremacy of Tsingtao Beer.
After a decade of acquisitions since its creation in 1993, China Resources Breweries has built up an annual production capacity of 3.05 million tonnes, similar to that of Tsingtao Beer.
It has 29 companies and 26 brands but none as famous or popular as Tsingtao, the national bestseller and the only Chinese brand with an international profile.
'We have selected Xuehua [Snowflake] as our national brand,' a China Resources Breweries official said.
It plans to spend 100 million yuan a year on promoting the brand, with production this year of one million tonnes, in plants in different parts of the country, up from 800,000 last year.
This month, it set up a 20-man team jointly with the management gurus at US firm Kotler Marketing Group to conduct a market survey and present a marketing strategy for Snowflake ahead of the peak summer season.
