Sapporo Breweries is shifting some production to the U.S. from Canada due to 50% tariffs imposed by Washington on beer imports from the country as it seeks to reinvigorate its North American operations.<\/p>\n
The Japanese brewer, which makes the top-selling Asian beer in the U.S., is also considering adding manufacturing capacity in the western U.S. as it seeks to expand its flagship brand in one of its biggest overseas markets, Chief Strategy Officer Rieko Shofu said in an interview.<\/p>\n
U.S. President Donald Trump\u2019s levies on beer made in Canada are the latest twist for the Japanese brewer. The production shift plans are part of a broader revamp following years of acquisitions that failed to deliver sufficient returns. The company sold Stone Brewing in 2022 and liquidated Anchor Brewing in 2023.<\/p>\n
\u201cTariffs are something out of our control,\u201d Shofu said. \u201cWe\u2019re going to move ahead with local production.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sapporo will move production of non-alcoholic beer currently made in Canada for the U.S. market by the first half of 2027. Sapporo is considering acquiring or building a brewery on the American West Coast, or contracting with other manufacturers, the executive said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe U.S. is a huge market, and we have a lot of momentum right now in terms of how much we can expand our share of that market,\u201d Shofu said.<\/p>\n
The brewer is accelerating investments in its beer business after deciding last year to sell its real estate business. Sapporo plans to spend \u00a5300 billion to \u00a5400 billion ($1.9 billion to $2.6 billion) on investments, including acquisitions, through 2030 as it seeks to grow operating profit to \u00a540 billion from around \u00a524 billion last year. Roughly 30% of that is targeted to come from overseas.<\/p>\n
Asia is another focus. Sapporo announced a venture with Carlsberg in July to expand in Southeast Asia. The company is also seeking investment opportunities in China and South Korea, according to Shofu.<\/p>\n
At home, where Sapporo is the No. 4 beermaker, the company faces a different challenge as Japan\u2019s shrinking population weighs on long-term alcohol consumption. Shofu said the company has a \u201cconsiderable sense of urgency\u201d about the domestic market and isn\u2019t ruling out greater supply-chain cooperation with rivals over the longer term.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sapporo Breweries is shifting some production to the U.S. from Canada due to 50% tariffs imposed by Washington…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":87934,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2064,6498,1368,13,8,36141,2749,84],"class_list":["post-87933","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-japan","tag-alcohol","tag-beer","tag-canada","tag-donald-trump","tag-japan","tag-sapporo-breweries","tag-tariffs","tag-u-s"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87933","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87933"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87933\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87934"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}