Mexican beer production rose 4.8% annually from January to August 2022with which it hopes to return to the pre-pandemic level despite challenges such as drought and inflation, Karla Siqueiros, general director of Cerveceros de México, told EFE: National Chamber of the Beer and Malt Industry.
Due to the “dynamism” that the Mexican beer industry has seen this year, the largest exporter of the beverage in the world, The sector expects to recover the growth rate of between 4% and 5% per year that it showed on average before Covid-19.
What we estimate is to be able to maintain it or, at least, already reach these levels that the industry had been showing,” Siqueiros said in an interview with EFE.
The union representative highlighted that the malting barley harvest in Mexico, which is almost entirely used to produce beer, had a “historic yield” of more than 1 million tons in 2021, an increase of 19.5% compared to 2020, with a production value of 4,755 million pesos.
Mexico’s brewing industry represents 700,000 jobs, 1.5% of the national gross domestic product (GDP) and 23% of agribusiness exports, according to Siqueiros.
Water scarcity, the great challenge of the industry
But this year the sector has faced the challenge of drought in states bordering the United States and in particular in the northern city of Monterrey, home to the historic Cervecería Cuauhtémoc Moctezuma, now a subsidiary of Heineken.
In the face of the emergency, which interrupted regular water service to Mexico’s second most populous city for months, the president, Andres Manuel Lopez Obradorexpressed last August that “beer is no longer going to be produced in the north”, arguing that “Mexico is already the country that produces the most beer in the world”.
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Questioned about this, Siqueiros commented that the reading of the sector “is that there will be no new concessions in these states with water stress and the invitation was for the new bets and new investments to be valued in the Mexican southeast.”
and stated that “Mexico is the most efficient country in terms of water use for beer production in the world.”
2.5 liters of water are used to produce a liter of beer, when 5 are used in the world, so we use half and very important efforts are made in sustainability”, he said.
The directive assured that the industrial sector in general uses 4.9% of the total water available in the country and of that percentage only 0.05% is for beer production, so breweries only use 0.02% of the national liquid, according to their statistics.
The commitment of the Mexican brewing industry is long term, it has not stopped investing, we have the most efficient plants, productively speaking, in recent years three important plants have been built”, he explained.
Export and inflation
The Brewers representative acknowledged the impact that all production chains have had globally in all industries, such as port logistics, increased transportation costs, rising fuel prices, closure of operations in China due to Covid-19 and tensions between Russia and Ukraine.
But in Mexico, “the value chain of the brewing agribusiness is a highly integrated chain, 73% of the purchases required for the production of beer are national purchases“, which “has made it possible to mitigate these external macroeconomic effects,” he defended.
Faced with the possible recession in the United States, which buys 85% of the beer that Mexico exports, Siqueiros affirmed that “they have not seen” an impact yet, noting that the US market recognizes the quality of Mexican beverages.
The directive highlighted that the industry in Mexico “is a value chain that works”, which ranges from the 5,000 farmers dedicated to barley, to the million small stores for which the beverage represents between 30% and 40% of their income. .
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