The economy remains depressed, but not enough, it appears, to drive Jamaicans to drink beer - or no more than usual.

So beer maker Red Stripe, which still struggles with sluggish performance of domestic sales, reiterated Wednesday that it would seek solace overseas through an aggressive push into North America to increase export volumes in order to drive growth.

"The potential for exports in terms of size of the beer market is enormous," said managing director Alan Barnes, who has completed just three months on the job.

"The American market is our biggest market for exports and there are potentially big margins that you can make on your brands in America, but it is fiercely competitive so we have to spend signi-ficantly on advertising, marketing and relationship building."

Red Stripe spent $1.3 billion on marketing in its last financial year ending June 30, 2009, with the majority $806 million of the funds poured into Jamaican sales.

Indeed, the company said its export marketing budget had fallen by $246 million relative to the 2007/08 period, because of adjustments to its brand investment stra-tegy in North America.

In its just-concluded financial year, Red Stripe reported turnover of $13.4 billion, reflecting an eight per cent increase year on year, saying its top-line improvement was driven primarily by exports.

Nominal sales volumes

The company does not quote its nominal sales volumes, but said that in percentage terms there was a total decline of 10 per cent.

Net profit rose to $1.55 billion, up from $1 billion.

The domestic market declined, reflecting the impact of the economic downturn on disposable income, as well as increased competition, the company reported.

Taking cue from those results, the company is looking to broaden its footprint internationally, according to Barnes.

"We have requests from almost everywhere," he told the monthly Mayberry Investor's Forum where he laid out plans for the company.

"There is India, China wanting to know about export potential," he said, "but we need to validate and make sure that whatever we go into they are the right people to get us the growth we want."

Scoping out markets

Grace Silvera, global market development director, added Africa to the list but said the company was just now scoping out the markets and was still to make a final call on whether to tap business in the far-flung continents.

For now, the more immediate focus is positioning Red Stripe Light for entry into North America and Central America.

And the company also hopes to grow sales of Malta - the non-alcoholic beverage brand carried by Red Stripe and which controls 75 per cent of the local malt beverage market - in the Caribbean and Central American markets.

"There are expanding growth opportunities out there so we have to put in place structures to realise the opportunities," said Barnes, but gave no specifics.

sabrina.gordon@gleanerjm.com