World: Two of world’s largest brewers warn of higher prices this year

Two of the world’s largest breweries have warned that higher production costs, which could be passed on to customers in 2022, The Local reported on February 17.

Both Heineken and Denmark’s own Carlsberg have suggested higher prices are on the horizon.

Carlsberg’s CEO Cees ‘t Hart recently told Danish newspaper Børsen that the brewery is currently in negotiations with customers, which would see Carlsberg receive higher payments for supplying its beer products.

Heineken signalled price increases on February 16, when the Dutch company published its annual results. Higher production costs would mean the price of beer will increase, Heineken said.

Statements from the two companies mean customers should prepare for more expensive beer in the near future, according to an analyst.

“We have already seen that things have already got more expensive in areas like dairy, which have also been hit by high raw material costs,” said Per Fogh, stockmarket analyst with Sydbank.

“We can also see that breweries have been hit by these high raw material costs. You can therefore expect beer to get more expensive in 2022,” he said.

Heineken said that it expects production costs to go up by around 15 percent, although this does not necessarily mean the price of a glass of beer will go up by 15 percent.

“They also have other levers they can pull so as to affect some of these production cost increases,” Fogh said.

“I would expect it to be under 10 percent,” he said in relation to how much beer prices could go up.

Carlsberg and Heineken are the third and second-largest breweries in the world respectively, with Belgium’s AB InBev the largest.

17 February, 2022