Beer Market Analysis: Craft brewing impact over the beer industry in Italy

The present thesis will explain the current state, from a quantitative and qualitative perspective, of the beer market in Italy. The analysis will emphasize the performance of craft breweries over the total beer industry, since they are becoming a strong competence to the large scale companies, due to the increasing preference from consumers for quality and variety in beers. This concept has driven to new brewers enter into the market. In the first part of the analysis, an overview about the industry will be made, starting with the concept of beer, some relevant information about how the beer was born and how split all over the world, followed by the description of the production process taking into account the difference between craft and industrial beer. The legal environment is also considered in this part. Then, a World and European market analysis will be held in order to get an impression of how the global market works. At this point, the target market analysis is reached, where many dimensions will be examined such us market size, growth rates, trends, distribution channels, cost structure, customer behavior and preference, among others. An additional key factor considered is the analysis of competitors which will describe the main players in the market. As a final point, the evaluation of different balance sheets from the companies that represent the majority of the market share will be done, in order to understand their performance inside the market. Further analysis concerning craft brewing is present in the document in order to use it as a tool of comparison to understand their tendency in the market.