Heineken Vietnam has unveiled its largest brewery in Ba Ria Vung Tau: which has become the region’s largest after multiple expansions over the last five years.
Brewers have long been at the forefront of environmental causes and sustainable initiatives. From recycling to energy-efficient equipment, craft breweries have long worked to leave a minimal footprint in a very resource-heavy industry. The recent shock on fuel prices and rising energy costs along with an aging power grid in many states has caused breweries of all sizes to think about alternative energy sources or bringing equipment in-house to keep the lights on and taps flowing.
Ongoing disruptions to breweries’ supply of carbon dioxide have made national news on the heels of a decision by Massachusetts-based Night Shift Brewing to outsource most beer production in part because it was unable to source the gas needed to carbonate its beer. Combined with higher costs breweries are already paying for items like aluminum, malt, and packaging materials, the burden of having less CO2, paying more for it, or not being able to carbonate and sell as much beer as planned represents a crisis for breweries’ profit margins.
Breweries have already been facing higher costs for raw materials like aluminum and barley as a result of inflation. Craft breweries across America have been on the front lines of businesses facing higher material costs because of inflation. Now, many are confronting a shortage of a key ingredient: carbon dioxide, the gas that gives beer its crisp, effervescent taste. And one brewer has already said it plans to shut down a key manufacturing plant and lay off workers as a result.
Canpack S.A., part of the Canpack Group, will increase its manufacturing capacity of aluminum beverage cans with a new production facility in Poços de Caldas, in the State of Minas Gerais, Brazil.
The Yakima Chief Hops story continues to grow, and it’s been a fun one to watch. The grower-owned hop supplier is a global name today. You only have to see this just finished state-of-the-art cold storage warehouse in Belgium to be impressed by its progress, or maybe take a peek at its latest cutting-edge products from frozen fresh hops to water-soluble CBD distillate.
Last year, the owner and brewer of Urban Artifact Brewing Company in Cincinnati spent nine months waiting for an order of the tropical superfruit to get filled from a supplier in Vietnam, a major lychee exporter. His shipment never left Southeast Asia, posing big problems for Urban Artifact’s Petroglyph beer, a top seller.
Ball Corp (BLL)., one of the world’s largest suppliers of aluminum cans, is sending shockwaves throughout the craft beer world after lifting the minimum number of cans certain producers must order and saying it will raise prices.