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Monday, 21 August 2023

UK beer exports in the 1970s (part three)

Time for another continent. One where exports faded as British influence did. 

All of the destinations in Africa were volatile in terms of how much was imported. The Canary Islands are the only place where the volumes were reasonably constant.

Not sure what was going on in Nigeria. Where imports of UK beer went from fuck all to quite a lot and then fell back to fuck all.

Overall, exports of beer to Africa were in serious decline in the 1970s, other than that weird bump in sales to Nigeria.

UK beer exports to Africa 1971 - 1975
Country of Destination 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975
Canary Islands 1,341 1,196 1,112 1,199 1,848
Egypt  74 16 288 261 233
Gambia 2,085 1,657 2,321 2,705 3,773
Liberia 2,978 903 80 61 11
Nigeria 96 1,074 915 4,592 74,985
St. Helena  1,775 1,765 2,401 2,073 1,691
Seychelles  3,068 2,126 68 57 208
South Africa 1,528 959 1,484 1,466 1,879
Total Africa. 12,945 9,696 8,669 12,414 84,628
Source:
“The Brewers' Society Statistical Handbook 1980” page 15.

 

UK beer exports to Africa 1976 - 1980
Country of Destination 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980
Canary Islands 1,464 2,365 1,921 1,940 1,241
Egypt  3,447 1,719 648 4 55
Gambia 4,429 2,632 378 61 54
Liberia 73 — — 6  
Nigeria 59,787 74,810 1,985 46 111
St. Helena  1,105 1,238 667 576 388
Seychelles  305 683 453 187 65
South Africa 1,025 1,286 801 384 128
Total Africa. 71,635 84,733 6,853 3,204 2,042
Source:
“The Brewers' Society Statistical Handbook 1980” page 15.

 


4 comments:

  1. InSearchOfKnowledge21 August 2023 at 03:54

    This looks the same as last Friday.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous23 August 2023 at 12:54

    Nigerians drink a lot of Guinness and they had at least one brewery there for a long time. I wouldn't be surprised if the huge swing in imports had to do with something like a brewery temporarily closing and then relocating or being retrofitted -- maybe due to fire or something like that.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Iain25 August 2023 at 12:07

    I was wondering if it was tied to the 1970s oil boom in Nigeria as the government gradually acquired larger and larger stakes in companies like Shell-BP and Mobil and massively increased production and exploration. Was there an influx of British oil workers into Nigeria during the middle of the 70s that could explain the surge in UK beer imports?

    ReplyDelete
  4. qq4 September 2023 at 15:53

    Don't forget they had the small matter of the civil war (Biafra) from 1967-70 which no doubt will have depressed things a bit. Then you had increasing oil production plus the big spike in oil prices after 1973, which meant the economy boomed in the mid 1970s, then things got a bit dodgy again.

    Guinness built their first brewery in Lagos in 1961, so I guess it's plausible that it built up demand but if it got trashed in the civil war then they had to meet demand with imports until they were able to get the brewery up and running again?

    ReplyDelete