Thursday 15 January 2015

German brewing in the 1970’s – even more numbers

Great little number mine I’ve found here.

I’ve noticed that, as the years have gone by, my posts have become longer. Looking back to the early days of the blog, many posts are two or three hundred words, a few maybe five hundred. Nowadays I feel guilty when I dish up fewer than 600 words.

Where’s this going? You should be able to guess. Not too many words this time. But a fair few numbers to make up.

It’s all about beer output per worker:

“Table IV shows the volume of beer produced per person employed in the different EEC countries in the years of 1967 and 1974. During these seven years the Irish brewers have been the most progressive with an increase from 890 hl up to 1,325 hl, but the highest productivity is in France with 1,447 hl, followed by the Netherlands with 1,403 hl per person employed. In West Germany with our numerous breweries we produce 1,037 hl per production employee, a little more than in Great Britain where one employed person is producing 927 hl. The reason for this low output is Great Britain's problem for the future and may be found in the very traditional production system in some plants.”
Journal of the Institute of Brewing, Volume 83, Issue 1, March-April 1977, page 72.

Here’s the table:

TABLE IV. Beer Production in hl per annum per person employed in the Breweries or the EEC.
Country 1967 1974
Denmark 635 831
Eire 890 1,325
Great Britain 560 927
Italy 788 -
Netherlands 1,012 1,403
Luxemburg 677 1,056
Belgium 627 800
France 1,032 1,447
West Germany 794 1,037
Total 719 1,060

You can probably guess where this is going. We’ll have a look at today:

Output per employee in 2012
Country employed output (1,000 hl) output per employee
Denmark 3,500 6,080 1,737
Ireland 1,500 8,195 5,463
United Kingdom 13,500 42,047 3,115
Italy 4,700 13,293 2,828
Netherlands 6,300 24,271 3,853
Luxembourg 130 292 2,246
Belgium 4,500 18,751 4,167
France 3,900 17,132 4,393
Germany 26,900 94,618 3,517
Total/average 64,930 224,679 3,460
Source:
Beer Statistics 2014 edition, Brewers of Europe, 2014, pages 11 and 27.

Looks like productivity has shot up. Let’s do that nailing and comparing thing.

Output per employee in 1974 - 2012
Country 1974 2014 % change
Denmark 831 1,737 109.04%
Ireland 1,325 5,463 312.33%
United Kingdom 927 3,115 235.99%
Italy - 2,828
Netherlands 1,403 3,853 174.59%
Luxembourg 1,056 2,246 112.70%
Belgium 800 4,167 420.86%
France 1,447 4,393 203.58%
Germany 1,037 3,517 239.19%
Total/average 1,060 3,460 226.45%
Source:
Journal of the Institute of Brewing, Volume 83, Issue 1, March-April 1977, page 73.
Beer Statistics 2014 edition, Brewers of Europe, 2014, pages 11 and 27.

Isn’t that interesting. Productivity seems to have shot up. At the same time as the number of breweries has explodes and output per brewhouse collapsed.

What a weird and wacky world we live in.

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