"PP Ward", Baragwanath Hospital

One of the marketing battles we at SAB had was the competition for the large and growing African market. The then South African Government regarded SAB as an ‘English speaking business’ and was therefore hostile to their regime, so the excise duty on beer was massively increased and the excise duty on wine was reduced to near zero since wine was seen as a way of supporting the mainly Afrikaner wine farmers.

A cheap sparkling wine branded ‘Paarl Perle’ was heavily promoted into the African market, where a 750ml bottle of ‘Paarl Perle’, with about a 12% alcohol content, retailed for about the same price as a 750 ml bottle of Lager with about a 5% alcohol content.

At the time unlicenced ‘shebeens’ in the townships was where Africans generally chose to drink. Often these establishments were well appointed comfortable places. The Apartheid laws did not permit Africans to frequent ‘whites only’ bars and hotels. The police were paid off by shebeen owners not to interfere and the only operations that were allowed to service shebeens with alcoholic products were in fact the Government ‘Administration Boards’. This effectively meant that the government, through its board, was routinely supplying illegal outlets with alcohol. About 80% of the beer consumed in South Africa was by African consumers and most of the beer was served in ‘shebeens’. On top of this sly grog trade, the government also benefited from large and increasing revenues from beer excise duties.

SAB had established a large rep force and some of those reps had dozens of African ‘promoters’ who were very active in the ‘shebeens’.

One of these reps would tell his promoters the following story: “You all know Baragwanath Hospital. You know they have the ‘A’ ward the ‘B’ ward and so on. And then they have the ‘AA’ ward, the ‘BB’ ward. And then there’s the ‘PP’ ward. I can tell you privately that the ‘PP’ ward is the ‘Paarl Perle’ ward. If you drink Paarl Perle that is where you end up.”

            On another occasion SAB had bought out a brewery started and run incompetently by Whitbread, a very large British brewing operation.

            The same rep said to the General Manager, when he made the announcement, “Sir, what do I tell the people now? for years I have been telling them the place was built on a shit farm.”