Beer market steams ahead in Africa

It was a sweltering Friday afternoon in March, and the Blessing Restaurant on the sleeper train from Lagos to Kano, Nigeria’s two largest cities, was starting to fill up.

Lunch offerings included meat pies and peppery soups, but most of the men in the dining car were thinking more of their thirst – and beer in particular.

Emmanuel Okewu, a 21-year-old shoemaker, was already on his second bottle of Turbo King, marketed by Heineken’s local subsidiary as “a dark ale resembling the strength and power of real men”.

He chatted to a man clutching a Harp Lager, “real beer for real friends”, made by Guinness Nigeria.

Lesh Akimbode, 64, stayed in his cabin, for he had brought his refreshment on board with him – a couple of bottles of Legend, “a unique bitter tasting premium stout”, also brewed in a Heineken-owned plant.

Beer is big business in Nigeria, and it is growing all the time. Before this year, when consumer spending started to slow, the market had been expanding at 10 per cent per annum for a decade.

Even so, average per capita beer consumption is still only 10 litres a year, a sixth of the rate in South Africa, meaning the potential for growth remains huge – especially when you consider that Nigeria has about 170m people.

The brand-conscious middle class is swelling, and it is this demographic that foreign brewers are targeting with aspirational drinks such as Heineken – available in magnum-size bottles in Nigeria – and Guinness, which sells in greater quantities in the west African country than anywhere else, including Ireland.

But the tens of millions of people in the lower-middle class bracket, who have only limited disposable income, also represent a potentially lucrative market because of their numbers, and are the target market for cheaper beers such as Mr Okewu’s favourite, Turbo King, which costs 63 US cents for a 330ml bottle.