The Football World Cup kicks off in Qatar in mid-November: fans often fire up the grill and chill the beer to enjoy the football. Not so this year: With the Winter World Cup, not many people are interested in barbecuing any more – and now a hearty development for beer is just around the corner.
Popular beer is getting more expensive. Because carbon dioxide is scarce and expensive, many brewers raise prices. This emerges from a recent article in the Berner Zeitung.
This is because it needs natural gas to produce carbonic acid. And gas is known to be very popular these days. Countries like Germany and Italy are already suffering from bottlenecks. This is not currently the case in Switzerland. But the situation is “very tense,” according to the Federal Office of National Economic Procurement.
Prices are skyrocketing
As Blick reported two months ago, many major carbon dioxide producers have stopped their production. For example, the German chemical company BASF, one of the largest manufacturers in Europe.
This loss of production creates a shortage in the market and sends gas prices through the roof. Customers now pay 65 percent more than they did a year ago. Beverage manufacturers and breweries pour a lot. More and more companies are having to reflect higher costs in their selling prices.
Inflation is passed on to customers
Mineral water producers such as Adelbodner Mineralquellen AG have already adjusted their prices. Now the breweries are following the case. The next few months will have to show just how high the beer price increases will be. Industry leader Feldschlösschen announced the price adjustments at the beginning of December.
Breweries do not add carbon dioxide to beer, but they do need it to clean the tanks and when bottling. The carbonic acid in beer occurs naturally during the fermentation process.
alternatively, nitrogen
Therefore, not all brewers are equally affected by high carbon dioxide prices. Large breweries such as Feldschlösschen recover excess carbon dioxide during the fermentation process. Therefore, they are less dependent on the international market. However, such recovery systems are very expensive and do not pay for small manufacturers.
An alternative would be to replace the CO₂ required in the purge and fill process with nitrogen. Such a system is also expensive to purchase, but also pays off for smaller breweries, given current carbonic acid prices. (shq)
Source :Blick
I’m Tim David and I work as an author for 24 Instant News, covering the Market section. With a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism, my mission is to provide accurate, timely and insightful news coverage that helps our readers stay informed about the latest trends in the market. My writing style is focused on making complex economic topics easy to understand for everyone.
