IAN BRENTON , HEAD OF PROCUREMENT AT ASAHI EUROPE , DETAILS PROCUREMENT ’ S ROLE IN REINFORCING THE PREMIUMISATION OF ASAHI ’ S BRANDS

J apanese beverage company Asahi is internationally known for products such as its eponymous Super Dry lager . More recently , it has acquired several European brands such as Peroni and Grolsch under its Asahi Europe subsidiary . Asahi Europe was indirectly formed following the acquisition of SABMiller by AB InBev , with one of the conditions being to divest part of its European business . Ian Brenton is Head of Procurement at Asahi Europe , having formerly been at SABMiller . “ I was responsible for a number of the packaging categories globally . When Asahi acquired the Western European Business Unit from SABMiller they needed a procurement team . They kindly offered me the opportunity to move from running a packaging specific agenda to managing the entire procurement agenda . As such , we ’ re a team of 23 people , working from the UK , Italy , Holland and Switzerland .”