Asahi Europe & International is the European division of Japan’s Asahi Group, stewarding a premium beer portfolio across 9 countries with 19 production sites .
Their global brands include Asahi Super Dry, Peroni Nastro Azzurro, Pilsner Urquell, Kozel, and Grolsch, available in both alcoholic and low-/no?alcohol variants. They also brew local favourites via regional companies—such as Gambrinus, Radegast, Tyskie, Ursus, and Lech—covering lagers, pilsners, craft ales, and ciders across Europe.
The Brief
Having worked with Asahi (prev Miller Brands) since 2012 and helped develop their category & insights teams, they’d grown to a point where they needed a channel specific Category Manager to manage the relationships with their on-trade customers.
Having a premium positioning, their approach to category management was traditionally very insight-led, generating actionable insights for customers on how to grow the premium end of the beer category which was growing has continued to grow at a significant rate.
It was essential that they brought someone into the business who could establish category relationships with their customers seperate from the sales teams, and drive insight into the conversations they were having in order to drive category growth for premium brands, in turn providing opportunities for the business to ultimately maximise volume and distribution in their target customers.
The Process & Result
Through a detailed brief with the hiring manager and the HR team, we worked through the Allexo Process to target on-trade Category Managers from other drinks businesses, as well as well as Category & Insight Managers from pub groups and operators, with an unwavering focus on culture fit for the Asahi business.
Key obstacles were location with the role being primarily office based and many of the pub groups & operators being based outside of the South-East, and the very limited talent pool of on-trade Category Managers within other drinks businesses.
Following a full market search, we introduced a shortlist of 3 candidates with the successful candidate joining the business from Mitchells & Butlers, having been primarily home based in the South-East.
