CCU and Postobón officially open 3 million hl brewery

Colombia | The Chilean brewer CCU, which is part-owned by Heineken, and the domestic beverages company Postobón, on 3 May 2019 opened a USD 480 million brewery in an attempt to topple Bavaria’s stronghold.

Looks like beer monopolies could be a thing of the past. Although the Colombian brewer Bavaria (previously owned by SABMiller, now AB-InBev) has long enjoyed a nearly uncontested monopoly, CCU and Postobón must have noticed an opportunity to overcome Bavaria’s moat. In 2014, the two set up Central Cervecera de Colombia (CCC), a joint venture, to build a brewery in the municipality of Sesquilé, near Colombia’s capital Bogotá.   

Once the plant operates at full capacity, it will give the new venture a beer market share of 12 percent. The brewery will initially produce Andina, its first domestic brand, which was launched in February 2019. Progressively, it will introduce other brands, such as Heineken, Tecate, Miller Lite and Sol.

Behind CCU are the Chilean group Quiñenco – the Luksic family holding – and Heineken. In addition to Colombia, CCU has operating units in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay.

Postobón is part of the industrial conglomerate Organización Ardila Lülle, founded by Carlos Ardila Lülle, 89, and produces non-alcoholic beverages in Colombia, such as soft drinks, juices and waters.

The agreement with CCU allows Postobón to return to the beer market, which it entered in the early 1990s and subsequently left. The story goes that Mr Ardila and Bavaria’s owner, the late Julio Mario Santo Domingo, broke a truce not to tread on each other’s central businesses. This saw Mr Santo Domingo move into soft drinks and Mr Ardila open a brewery. However, Mr Ardila lost the battle. After piling up hundreds of millions of dollars in debt in the wake of Colombia’s 1999 recession, he sold his brewery to Mr Santo Domingo, who in turn sold his beer business to SABMiller in 2005 for USD 7.8 billion.

Colombia’s beer market is the third largest in Latin America. Per capita consumption stood at 42 litres beer in 2018.

As if to prevent CCC from fully grabbing the limelight, on 3 May 2019 Bavaria announced the launch of Club Colombia Siembra, a beer produced with 100 percent Colombian barley. According to Bavaria, it has been working for ten years to grow barley in the Cundiboyacense highlands.