Financial and ESG Analysis of the Beer Sector Pre- and Post-COVID-19 in Italy and Spain

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear author,

The comparison between countries is very interesting, and in this case between Spain and Italy it makes sense since they are countries with many characteristics in common. However, the choice of these countries for comparison should be better justified.

The years under analysis are not very representative for the comparison between before and after the pandemic, I would advise extending the period to 3 or 4 years before and 3 or 4 years after.

It also seems to me that the two main objectives are very different from each other. It would be interesting to analyze each of the objectives in more detail, and it would adapt well to different articles.

The quantitative study on the financial health of breweries already analyzes the comparison between two periods and between two countries. It would make perfect sense to leave the second, the qualitative study, with the objective of analyzing transparency on company websites and the respective comparison in both countries, for a second article.

The citations should be presented identically.

The methodology and explanation of the indices is over explained, and even repetitive, it can be reduced without taking away the merit (point 3.1).

The results should appear in the same order as the objectives, that is, financial health and then transparency on the websites. It's in reverse order.

Best regards,

Comments on the Quality of English Language

ok

Author Response

The comparison between countries is very interesting, and in this case between Spain and Italy it makes sense since they are countries with many characteristics in common. However, the choice of these countries for comparison should be better justified.

Response: The choice was at first practical, based on the two countries about which the authors had first-hand local knowledge and on which they had based previous research:

Coenders, G.; Sgorla, A.F.; Arimany-Serrat, N.; Linares-Mustarós, S.; Farreras-Noguer, M.À. Nuevos métodos estadísticos composicionales para el análisis de ratios contables. Revista de Comptabilitat i Direcció 2023, 35, 133-146.

Fontefrancesco, M. F.; Sgorla, A. F. Traiettorie inesplorate di antropologia del cibo: lo stato dell'arte dell'antropologia della birra in Italia. Narrare i Gruppi 2023, 18(2), 181-198.

Sgorla, A. F., Melacarne, C. (2023). L’artigianato «fermentato». I microbirrifici come botteghe di comunità. Quaderni di ricerca sull'artigianato 2023, 11(2), 215-238.

Sgorla, A. F. Apprendimento, lavoro e imprenditorialità nella fermentazione della maestria artigianale: uno studio sui maestri birrai in Italia e Spagna. Professionalità studi Numero 2022, 4(V), 339-365.

In the article we have stressed the similarities between both countries and their usefulness for the purposes of the research.

The years under analysis are not very representative for the comparison between before and after the pandemic, I would advise extending the period to 3 or 4 years before and 3 or 4 years after.

Response: In similar research in the beekeeping, rural tourism, fishery, and food and beverage production sectors, the down-fall and recovery (or at least the start of recovery) associated to the COVID-19 pandemic could also be observed with data from 2019 to 2021. In further research we plan to include data for further years in order to study the full recovery pf the pandemic and the impact of the Ucranian war on barley prices.

Dao, B.T.T.; Coenders, G.; Lai, P.H.; Dam, T.T.; Trinh, H.T. An empirical examination of financial performance and distress profiles during Covid-19: the case of fishery and food production firms in Vietnam. J. Financ. Report. Acco. 2024. https://doi.org/10.1108/JFRA-09-2023-0509

Saus Sala, E.; Farreras Noguer, M. À.; Arimany Serrat, N.; Coenders, G. Financial analysis of rural tourism in Catalonia and Galicia pre- and post COVID-19. Int. J. Tour. Res. 2024, 26(4), e2698. https://doi.org/10.1002/jtr.2698

Arimany-Serrat, N.; Coenders, G. Biodiversity and accounting: Compositional methodology in the accounting statement analysis of the beekeeping industry. Agric. Resour. Econ. 2025, 25(1).

The missing references have been added. The last paragraph in the conclusions which was already highlighting this limitation has been extended. “It is often argued that sectors are rarely homogeneous, and in practice it is more useful to calculate the averages of accounting ratios in strategic groups of similar companies than in the sector as a whole. Each company can thus compare its ratios with the average of the closest (or desired) strategic group instead of the entire sector. Compositional cluster analysis is used for this purpose [23, 24, 25, 26, 27,28, 66, 68].”

It also seems to me that the two main objectives are very different from each other. It would be interesting to analyze each of the objectives in more detail, and it would adapt well to different articles.

The study compares the analysis of the financial statements of the brewing sector in Italy and Spain and their web transparency of sustainability indicators following the new regulatory framework, EU Directive 2022/2426, on sustainability information, to be able to analyse in an integrated way the financial and sustainability information and their close relationship. Therefore, the two objectives are aligned with the regulations in force in Europe, which relate financial and sustainability indicators (example: energy consumption as a sustainability indicator has a significant impact on supplies in the financial statement of the profit and loss account).

The quantitative study on the financial health of breweries already analyzes the comparison between two periods and between two countries. It would make perfect sense to leave the second, the qualitative study, with the objective of analyzing transparency on company websites and the respective comparison in both countries, for a second article.

Response: Revisor 3 has the opposite view, which we share. More and more environmental, social and governance indicators are considered to be a part of the reporting obligations of companies, beside accounting books. We consider that combining them and relating them (figure 4) is a strong point of the article.

The citations should be presented identically.

Response: We have revised the references and citations. In some instances, names and years were present beside numbers and have been removed. In the reference list, some items with different format (mainly years and journal names) have been corrected.

The methodology and explanation of the indices is over explained, and even repetitive, it can be reduced without taking away the merit (point 3.1).

Response: In spite of the limitations of the classic financial ratio analysis methodology, the accounting community is still for the most unaware of the compositional methodology. We think that most of section 3.1., especially the toy example in table 1 and the text around it has value in itself in putting the disadvantages of arithmetic means and the corresponding advantages of geometric means on the table.

We have shortened the section a bit as suggested.

The results should appear in the same order as the objectives, that is, financial health and then transparency on the websites. It's in reverse order.

Response: done as requested.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The CoDa methodology really helps in revealing the importance of metrics of ratios.

I suggest to employ a regression analysis in order to strengthen your results. The descriptive analysis seems no sufficient.  

For completeness purposes, the inclusion of a broader dataset would have resulted in stronger implications. 

Author Response

The CoDa methodology really helps in revealing the importance of metrics of ratios.

I suggest to employ a regression analysis in order to strengthen your results. The descriptive analysis seems no sufficient. 

Statistical modelling requires other sort of log-ratio transformations and the corresponding methodological explanations, which have been used in other articles by the same authors (e.g. Arimany-Serrat, N.; Farreras-Noguer, A.; Coenders, G. Financial resilience of Spanish wineries during the COVID-19 lockdown. Int. J. Wine Bus. Res. 2023, 35(2), 346–364.). The panel data structure poses specific challenges, which, while fully solvable (Carreras Simó, M.; Coenders, G. The relationship between asset and capital structure: a compositional approach with panel vector autoregressive models. Quant. Financ. Econ. 2021, 5(4), 571–590.) would make for a longer methodological presentation and a more complex interpretation. Furthermore, only one quantitative non-financial variable is available (the number of disclosed non-financial indicators), which would turn the issue into a set of (uninteresting) simple regression models, which would look like a sort of overkill. Having said this, we fully agree with the reviewer that there is a need to strengthen the relationship between financial and non-financial indicators with some sort of statistical inference. To this end, we have added non-parametric tests to support the relationships found in Figures 3 and 4.

Figura 3. According to the Kruskal-Wallis non-parametric test, disclosure is significantly higher in Cluster 1 than in Cluster 3 (p-value = 0.045).

Figura 4, According to the Kruskal-Wallis test, total assets are significantly higher in Cluster 1 than in Cluster 2 (p-value = 0.029), and significantly higher in Cluster 1 than in Cluster 3 (p-value = 0.030).

For completeness purposes, the inclusion of a broader dataset would have resulted in stronger implications.

Response: We agree that this is a strong limitation, which has been stressed in the last paragraph of the conclusions, both in the temporal and company dimensions. In the company dimensions there was no sampling. All companies fulfilling the eligibility criteria were selected. We have changed the word “sample” into “population” in the complete article to stress this fact.

As regards the temporal dimension, in similar research in the beekeeping, rural tourism, fishery, and food and beverage production sectors, the down-fall and recovery (or at least the start of recovery) associated to the COVID-19 pandemic could also be observed with data from 2019 to 2021. In further research we plan to include data for further years in order to study the full recovery pf the pandemic and the impact of the Ucranian war on barley prices.

Dao, B.T.T.; Coenders, G.; Lai, P.H.; Dam, T.T.; Trinh, H.T. An empirical examination of financial performance and distress profiles during Covid-19: the case of fishery and food production firms in Vietnam. J. Financ. Report. Acco. 2024. https://doi.org/10.1108/JFRA-09-2023-0509

Saus Sala, E.; Farreras Noguer, M. À.; Arimany Serrat, N.; Coenders, G. Financial analysis of rural tourism in Catalonia and Galicia pre- and post COVID-19. Int. J. Tour. Res. 2024, 26(4), e2698. https://doi.org/10.1002/jtr.2698

Arimany-Serrat, N.; Coenders, G. Biodiversity and accounting: Compositional methodology in the accounting statement analysis of the beekeeping industry. Agric. Resour. Econ. 2025, 25(1).

The missing references have been added. The last paragraph in the conclusions which was already highlighting this limitation has been extended. The missing references have been added. The last paragraph in the conclusions which was already highlighting this limitation has been extended. “It is often argued that sectors are rarely homogeneous, and in practice it is more useful to calculate the averages of accounting ratios in strategic groups of similar companies than in the sector as a whole. Each company can thus compare its ratios with the average of the closest (or desired) strategic group instead of the entire sector. Compositional cluster analysis is used for this purpose [23, 24, 25, 26, 27,28, 66, 68].”

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

1. Thesis title: Modify the thesis title to make it more consistent with the actual research content of the article, and clearly convey the focus and scope of the research, and refer to the research content more specifically in the title.

2. Abstract Section: The abstract needs to supplement the discussion of the background and significance of the research, explaining the importance of the research to industry and policy makers. At the same time, the word order structure of the abstract needs to be modified to ensure smooth and logical expression, and to concisely cover the purpose, methods, results and conclusions of the research.

3. Literature review: The literature review part mainly describes the history and current situation of winemaking, which deviates from the theme of the paper. More previous research relevant to the topic of the article should be added, in particular research on the application of combined Data analysis (CoDa) to financial ratio analysis, as well as relevant environmental, social and governance indicators. At the same time, more recent literature can be added to better reflect the current research trends and progress.

4. Literature citation: Literature citation needs to specifically mark the source of each cited document to ensure academic standardization. It is recommended to refer to Unlocking sustainability potential: The impact of green finance reform on corporate ESG performance,Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental  Management; Can Environmental Information Disclosure Improve Energy Efficiency in Manufacturing?  Evidence from Chinese Enterprises, Energies.;The spatial spillover effect of innovative city policy on carbon efficiency: Evidence from China.The Singapore Economic Review

5. Paper structure adjustment: The structure of the paper needs to be adjusted. Too much space in the current structure is used to explain why geometric mean is used to construct financial ratios, and the focus of the paper should be on the study of the financial status of breweries in Italy and Spain, and the methodological part should be concise.

6. Model selection: It is necessary to clarify the basis for model selection in more detail, and appropriately cite references to support the rationality and scientificity of model selection, so as to enhance the persuasive power of the research.

7. Insufficient sample data: The sample size is relatively small, especially the data of Spain, which may affect the representativeness of the results. It is recommended to expand the sample size and extend the time frame in future studies to obtain more comprehensive data. Second, the data, as of 2021, does not reflect the latest industry developments. It is recommended that the most recent data should be used in future studies to ensure the timeliness and relevance of the results.

8. The depth of the analysis of non-financial indicators: Although non-financial indicators are analyzed, the discussion on social and governance indicators is relatively brief. It is suggested to further analyze these indicators, especially their potential impact on financial performance. At the same time, the amount of data in the Internet transparency survey is too small, and it is suggested to expand the sample data size to make the research results more reliable and representative.

9. Imperfect description of results: The description of results needs to be improved, detailing the specific meaning of each result and its actual impact on the industry, and adding more data support to enhance the reliability of the conclusion.

10, Supplementary recommendations: The recommendations section should be supplemented with specific recommendations for the future development of the beer industry and how to improve the disclosure and transparency of financial and non-financial indicators to improve the overall level of sustainability of the industry.

Author Response

1. Thesis title: Modify the thesis title to make it more consistent with the actual research content of the article, and clearly convey the focus and scope of the research, and refer to the research content more specifically in the title.

Response: in our opinion the title only contains keywords which constitute the core of the research. We are willing to change it in a further review round after getting feedback on what is missing or what is superfluous.

1. Abstract Section: The abstract needs to supplement the discussion of the background and significance of the research, explaining the importance of the research to industry and policy makers. At the same time, the word order structure of the abstract needs to be modified to ensure smooth and logical expression, and to concisely cover the purpose, methods, results and conclusions of the research.

Response: the abstract has been fully revised as requested.

1. Literature review: The literature review part mainly describes the history and current situation of winemaking, which deviates from the theme of the paper. More previous research relevant to the topic of the article should be added, in particular research on the application of combined Data analysis (CoDa) to financial ratio analysis, as well as relevant environmental, social and governance indicators. At the same time, more recent literature can be added to better reflect the current research trends and progress.

Response: some generic references on brewing (not winemaking) have been removed and 36,37 recent references on the relevance of environmental, social and governance indicators have been added. In particular, research on the application of combined Data analysis (CoDa) to financial ratio analysis was already included in the introduction [7, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26]

1. Literature citation: Literature citation needs to specifically mark the source of each cited document to ensure academic standardization.

Response: We have revised the references and citations. In some instances, names and years were present beside numbers and have been removed. In the reference list, some items with different format (mainly years and journal names) have been

1. It is recommended to refer to Unlocking sustainability potential: The impact of green finance reform on corporate ESG performance,Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental  Management; Can Environmental Information Disclosure Improve Energy Efficiency in Manufacturing?  Evidence from Chinese Enterprises, Energies.;The spatial spillover effect of innovative city policy on carbon efficiency: Evidence from China.The Singapore Economic Review

Response: Thanks for providing these two references, which have been added.

1. Paper structure adjustment: The structure of the paper needs to be adjusted. Too much space in the current structure is used to explain why geometric mean is used to construct financial ratios, and the focus of the paper should be on the study of the financial status of breweries in Italy and Spain, and the methodological part should be concise.

Response: In spite of the limitations of the classic financial ratio analysis methodology, the accounting community is still for the most unaware of the compositional methodology. We think that most of section 3.1., especially the toy example in table 1 and the text around it has value in itself in putting the disadvantages of arithmetic means and the corresponding advantages of geometric means on the table.

For the moment we keep the section as is, but we are willing to shorten it in a further review round if requested to do so.

1. Model selection: It is necessary to clarify the basis for model selection in more detail, and appropriately cite references to support the rationality and scientificity of model selection, so as to enhance the persuasive power of the research.

Response: We use no statistical model as such. The only selection decisions made are the clustering method and the number of clusters. As regards the clustering method any method supporting Euclidean distances can be used but we adhere to common practice in financial statement analysis, as in the cited references. As regards the number of clusters, there are indeed a bunch of criteria, but the ones we use (Average silhouette width and Caliński-Harabasz index) are also supported by the clustering literature. We indeed failed to report our search for alternative solutions. We have added a sentence stating that “A search for alternative solutions adding further clusters did not produce any distinct interpretable financial profile compared to the ones already present in the 3-cluster solution which we keep for interpretation”.

1. Insufficient sample data: The sample size is relatively small, especially the data of Spain, which may affect the representativeness of the results. It is recommended to expand the sample size and extend the time frame in future studies to obtain more comprehensive data. Second, the data, as of 2021, does not reflect the latest industry developments. It is recommended that the most recent data should be used in future studies to ensure the timeliness and relevance of the results.

Response: We agree that this is a strong limitation, which has been stressed in the last paragraph of the conclusions, both in the temporal and company dimensions. In the company dimensions there was no sampling. All companies fulfilling the eligibility criteria were selected. We have changed the word “sample” into “population” in the complete article to stress this fact.

As regards the temporal dimension, in similar research in the beekeeping, rural tourism, fishery, and food and beverage production sectors, the down-fall and recovery (or at least the start of recovery) associated to the COVID-19 pandemic could also be observed with data from 2019 to 2021. In further research we plan to include data for further years in order to study the full recovery pf the pandemic and the impact of the Ucranian war on barley prices.

Dao, B.T.T.; Coenders, G.; Lai, P.H.; Dam, T.T.; Trinh, H.T. An empirical examination of financial performance and distress profiles during Covid-19: the case of fishery and food production firms in Vietnam. J. Financ. Report. Acco. 2024. https://doi.org/10.1108/JFRA-09-2023-0509

Saus Sala, E.; Farreras Noguer, M. À.; Arimany Serrat, N.; Coenders, G. Financial analysis of rural tourism in Catalonia and Galicia pre- and post COVID-19. Int. J. Tour. Res. 2024, 26(4), e2698. https://doi.org/10.1002/jtr.2698

Arimany-Serrat, N.; Coenders, G. Biodiversity and accounting: Compositional methodology in the accounting statement analysis of the beekeeping industry. Agric. Resour. Econ. 2025, 25(1).

The missing references have been added. The last paragraph in the conclusions which was already highlighting this limitation has been extended. “It is often argued that sectors are rarely homogeneous, and in practice it is more useful to calculate the averages of accounting ratios in strategic groups of similar companies than in the sector as a whole. Each company can thus compare its ratios with the average of the closest (or desired) strategic group instead of the entire sector. Compositional cluster analysis is used for this purpose [23, 24, 25, 26, 27,28, 66, 68].”

1. The depth of the analysis of non-financial indicators: Although non-financial indicators are analyzed, the discussion on social and governance indicators is relatively brief. It is suggested to further analyze these indicators, especially their potential impact on financial performance. At the same time, the amount of data in the Internet transparency survey is too small, and it is suggested to expand the sample data size to make the research results more reliable and representative.

Response: As stated in the previous response, it is a population study and not a sampling study. We are sorry for not having made this clear in the first version of the article.

Having said that, the discussion of the non-financial part has been extended.

The relationship between financial and non-financial indicators is now supposted by non-parametric statistical testing.

1. Imperfect description of results: The description of results needs to be improved, detailing the specific meaning of each result and its actual impact on the industry, and adding more data support to enhance the reliability of the conclusion.

Response: The implications for management practice are indeed very important and have been extended in the conclusions.

11, Supplementary recommendations: The recommendations section should be supplemented with specific recommendations for the future development of the beer industry and how to improve the disclosure and transparency of financial and non-financial indicators to improve the overall level of sustainability of the industry.

Response: See response to the previous item

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear Authors,

Thank you for the adjustments you made, I think you improved the article a lot and it is currently ready for publication.

Best regards,

Author Response

Reviewed the citations, constructing a text with greater fluidity and clarity, as suggested by the reviewer

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The citations are messy, the format needs to be adjusted, and the language needs to be polished by professional native speakers

Comments on the Quality of English Language

 Moderate editing of English language required.

Author Response

The citations have been appropriately arranged and the text has been modified with clearer text, as indicated by the reviewer. The English language has been revised.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf