Glenn Cooper

Coopers is now Australia’s largest locally owned national brewer, following the takeover of Foster’s by SABMiller.

It’s a title the 149-year-old company is willing to exploit, hoping to boost its market share by 1% to 5% of the $5 billion beer market.

Glenn Cooper, Coopers’ chairman and fifth-generation Cooper, says the growing might of Woolworths and Coles is not good for the country, but a matter for the politicians to take up.

The South Australian business, which will celebrate its 150^th year in business, turns over more than $150 million annually, and retains its commitment to local ownership.

Hello, Glenn. You’ve become the big fish.

Well, we are actually not the big fish. We sort of achieved this by default, where the large breweries have decided to sell out to overseas companies. 

You don’t think your becoming the largest Australian-owned brewery will detract from your image?

We don’t call ourselves boutique because we are a fairly big-sized brewery. We only have 4% market share of the Australian market, but we have about 17% of the premium beer market.

When you say 4%, I think there’s plenty of room for consolidation. Am I right?

Well, there is not much more consolidation that you can have. The other two breweries [Little World Beverages and Gage Roads Brewing] could combine together maybe and there might be consolidation globally, but there’s not much more that can happen in Australia.

Other than ourselves, the other micro-breweries are very small and I am sure the big breweries would not be interested in purchasing those.

Are you looking to buy?

No, we are very comfortable as we are; we think we’ve got a marvellous opportunity with a lot of work to do over the next couple of years to grow our market share.

Are you committed to staying Australian owned?

Absolutely. Well, not just local but you have to be 100% committed to our family values; and that is, the family owns the brewery.

I’ve always said, after five generations, we are custodians of the brewery, and unless there is a problem or a great benefit other than our personal benefit what is the reason to sell?

I’ll tell you what I can add on to that, the reason for the fifth generation to sell at the moment would be purely greed and we don’t work that way.

I know it seems a bit odd because many accountants say, “Boy, look at the money you could make” but you have got to remember one thing, we didn’t start it, we didn’t get it through four generations, we’ve taken it over and made it stronger over this fifth generation.

How many family members are there?

There’s one, two, three, four family members at the moment. There are four fifth generation, there is one sixth generation and the other Coopers are very keen to continue on.

You previously ran your own business, how does this compare?

That’s correct. I think there is not a lot of difference because the philosophies are still very similar. The philosophies I had years ago are still not all that different to the philosophies I have today. It’s just a bigger operation and more employees. 

How many employees are there now? 

We have around 120 plus employees in Adelaide, and then there’ll be another 35-plus interstate.

And what did you learn running your own business?

I learnt a huge amount from running my own private business, and it gave me great grounding for Coopers.

I learnt not to get encouraged to borrow too much money, and I learnt certainly to curtail ideas that at the time may seem great opportunities, but to assess them a lot more carefully.

So why did you decide to join Coopers?

I always wanted to. You grow up in the Cooper family and my father told me to go out and do a lot of work because the brewery probably wouldn’t survive, it was very unlikely to survive during the early years, and then the later years around 1988/89 they said it will survive and we are now looking for the next generation and they asked me to come over.

The Australian beer market is big, but declining. Where do you think it’s at?

Beer is declining a bit at the moment and I think that is in line with the recession; well, it’s not so much a recession but it’s called disposable cash.

And it is like all retailers, if there’s not a lot of disposable income, then beer will suffer along with any other retail goods.

So I think we are still in for another couple of rough years but the good part is the industry is not going to collapse because people still love a good beer.

And how does beer compare with wine?

I’d rather be in the beer business. Is that a good answer? There you go.

What are the biggest changes you’ve seen in your 21 years?

Technology changes, and the biggest and most significant change has been the consolidation because of the supermarkets going into alcohol. And then the overall brewery consolidation worldwide.

I’ve been around a long time. Coles and Woolworths have been around a long time but their move into alcohol, I can’t give you an exact date but I think they really made a strong foray into alcohol probably some eight, nine years ago but in the recent probably four years the absolute battle ground of Coles and Woolworths has been prolific.

How has the supermarkets’ move into supermarket affected your business?

It makes it very tough. We have to compete. It is always hard dealing with the big conglomerates like Coles and Woolworths, but then again they also purchase a lot of product from us.

Beforehand, it was more one-on-one.

It was a lot more individual. A lot of hotels had their own bottle shops and you were dealing with the individual. Now you deal with well, a big part of the market you are dealing with Coles and Woolworths corporation.

And do you expect that to change?

I expect it to get worse. I expect Coles and Woolworths to increase their market share.

Currently Coles and Woolworths share 80% of the food in Australia, about 50% of the liquor in Australia and I probably expect that to increase. Do I think that is healthy? No, I don’t.

How could that be stopped?

That’s a job for our politicians.

Where do you want to take the business? 

Well, with the change at Foster’s, we think there is an opportunity to get a small growth spurt throughout Australia because we think there will be a little bit of a parochial support for the only Australian owned brewery. If we get a 1% growth in the next year, year and a half we’ll be very pleased.

So I wouldn’t mind a bit more than 1% growth in market share but it is tough in this environment too, the area is not growing so you have to get your growth from different areas now.

What diversification do you have then?

We are the world’s largest manufacturer of home brew kits all over the world. That is good business for us.

We also have malt extract which is a food additive, which we sell to people like Mars and Uncle Toby’s, Kellogg’s worldwide too.

Thanks for your time, Glenn.