“I have been talking to suppliers, as president of Acermex, to have a little light, because without bottles there is no beer and the shortage of glass can stop us all,” says Magallanes, who is also co-founder and director of Cervecería Loba . “It has been an ordeal, it is an issue that comes from the pandemic and from what is happening in China, and that is hitting us harder and harder and the outlook does not look better,” he says.
The rupture in the supply of glass is a situation that has been generated in China, where the suppliers of this raw material have had to stop production to comply with the regulations that the government has imposed on companies to meet goals. to mitigate their negative impact on the environment.
In the craft industry, 71.47% of the product is packaged in a 355-milliliter glass bottle, 25.09% in a returnable barrel, 1.03% in a non-returnable barrel, 0.69% in a 600-milliliter bottle or can, and 1.03% in others. , according to the latest data from Acermex.
Considering the large beer groups, 40% of the liquid is packaged in non-returnable bottles, 23.9% in returnable and 36.2% in cans, according to data from the National Chamber of the Beer and Malt Industry (Cerveceros de Mexico), an association that was not available to address the issue until the time of publication of this note.
Rodrigo Moncada, general director of Cervecería Allende, explains that they made consolidated purchases of containers to have in advance. However, they were unable to avoid production stoppages, which led to a 25% reduction in brand sales over the past year. “We can’t plan the stoppages, because the suppliers didn’t know when they would have containers available either.”
Added to this is the shortage of hops and malt that some breweries face and, although it has not yet had an impact on its price, the import of the input is affected by the rise in the cost of logistics in the world. Meanwhile, Acermex expects an exchange rate impact in the short term, given that purchases are made in dollars.