238) the larger companies seem to have an endless level of access to labor and capital, creating a stable situation, as they often seek marginalized areas with easy access to supplies that are otherwise labor rich, but job poor. (Merrett, 1998, p. 238)
Buyers:
Buyers are significant only in that, buyers for beer are in every corner of every market, tough they play a much more significant role in cutting into mass market sales by substituting with products perceived as higher quality. For most buyers of beer, other than those who have a problem beer is a luxury item that does not constitute a large portion of their total purchases, such as the case would be with fuel, this is one reason why price does not always determine buyer choice. In the global beer market the diversification of products and the micro-brew/specialty brew trend has create a situation where buyers see their beer choice as an image choice. In a sense it has become un-cool to buy major brand beer, unless as Goldberg puts it you are somehow making a statement against the micro-trend. (Goldberg, 2000, p.1) This has driven beer sales, internationally as some of the major international markets consider the big guys, still as novelty imported products.
Substitute Products:
Buyers play a significant roll in the changes that have dominated the global brewing industry for the last 20 years as diversification of brand, style and choice has created the ability of consumers to make choices of substitution, only partly related to low cost, a benefit of the mass market. The diversification of products within the mass market industry, may have initially created an intense cost output it has since created a market that mimics micro-brew demand and allows the big four to stay industry leaders in mass production. The challenges to the market has increased sales of products that look like micro/specialty brews but when one reads the fine print one realizes that the product is produced and bottled by one of the big four, this is true in the case of corporate takeover...
In the beer market where the major consumers have traditionally chosen mass marketed products such as those provided by the big four the new trend is to purchase substitute products, killing the historical monopoly of the big four. Though micro-brews may have begun with no intention of challenging the big guys (Ronnenberg, 1998, p. 208) the result has been a heightened sense of demand for quality rather than mass market products.
References
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International Brewing Giants Prepare to Swallow Foster's. (2006, August 30). Western Mail (Cardiff, Wales), p. 9.
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