Venezuela: how to bring a beer industry down
Venezuela | The outcome of the parliamentary election on 6 November 2020 was never in doubt. President Nicolas Maduro and his revolutionary socialists came out “victorious” in a vote marked by mass abstention.
The country’s elections council, staffed with Maduro loyalists, announced that 67.6 percent of the 5.2 million votes went to an alliance of parties that backs Mr Maduro, but that only 31 percent of eligible voters participated. The result allows Mr Maduro to take control of the only national institution he did not already control, cementing his dictatorship.
The European Union said on 7 December it did not consider the election free or fair and rejected the result.
Venezuela’s economy is in tatters. It has contracted by three-quarters in the past five years. The Financial Times newspaper pointed out that “inflation is running at more than 6,500 percent and the bolivar currency is worthless. A country rich in oil suffers chronic shortages of food, fuel, electricity, and running water.” More than five million people, a sixth of the population, have fled the country, either to Colombia or Brazil, thus creating a refugee crisis.
Mr Maduro’s win was assisted by the promise of government food parcels to voters. A big part of the population has depended on them for many years as food is sold in supermarkets at dollar equivalent prices.
Staring into the abyss
Beer consumption has dropped dramatically. Whereas it stood at 100 litres per capita in 2006, it is now below 5 litres.
The country’s major brewer, the privately-owned Polar, has long been threatened with nationalisation by the socialists. But it continues to operate one of its four breweries at a modest level because the Polar Group is also a food producer and thus deemed essential.
At its peak, Polar produced 25 million hl beer, as beer was cheaper to buy than a soft drink. By 2019 beer output had dwindled to 3 million hl. This year it will be far less. Its largest brewery (12 million hl capacity) is only running intermittently, while the others have been shuttered and need to be protected by security guards.
Venezuelans who yearn for change have little hope. They believe their country to be lost.
