EZA has broken the barriers of micro-brewery
- Written by E.Tsiliopoulos
EZA, a Greek brewer based in Atalanti, Central Greece, has climbed to the third place in the domestic beer market and the top Greek-owned brewery, leading its shareholders to a decision to surpass the tight limits of legal and tax framework of a micro-brewery and to seek to play a bigger role in the domestic beer market.
Athanasios Syrianos, CEO of EZA, told reporters that beer production grew 50 pct in 2016 to 300,000 hectolitre -the tax limit of a micro-brewery is 200,000 hectolitre annually- while sales are expected to reach 30 million euros because of a government decision to double a special consumption tax this year. The company is currently implementing an investment program worth 30 million euros.
Sales amounted to 16.5 million euros in 2015 and were projected to reach 29-30 million euros this year, while EBITDA are projected to soar from 950,000 euros in 2015 to 2.5 million euros in 2016.
The company plans to invest around 30 million euros in the 2015-2019 period, of which the first phase of 6.5 million have been completed and a second phase of around 16 million are expected to be completed in May 2017.
EZA has already begun exporting, with exports around 1.5 million euros, and has a market share of around 7-8 pct. Damma, a fund owned by Dimitris Daskalopoulos, owns a 33.8 pct minority stake in the company.
