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Bottles in a Veltins plant
Photo: Rainer Jensen / dpa
Beer is expected to become more expensive across the board soon.
A number of large breweries have announced price increases for the coming spring in view of increased energy, logistics and raw material costs.
In addition to Germany's largest brewery group, Radeberger, Pilsner market leaders Krombacher and Veltins also want to increase their prices for draft and bottled beer, as they confirmed to the dpa news agency on Tuesday.
The industry service “Beverage News” had previously reported on the plans (click here for the article).
A spokeswoman for the Radeberger Group justified the price increases with massive increases in costs for energy, logistics, empties and raw materials, consumables and supplies.
Krombacher pointed out that the last major price adjustment was three years ago.
According to estimates by the industry service “GetränkeNews”, the price increase will make the glass of beer in the pub between 30 and 50 cents more expensive, and the crate of beer in the beverage market by around 1 euro.
Price increases in early 2022
However, beer lovers still have a grace period: Radeberger does not want to start raising prices until February.
Retail prices are not even expected to rise until May.
Krombacher and Veltins want to turn the price screw at the beginning of April.
Germany’s breweries have had difficult years.
The corona pandemic has hit the industry heavily because of the months-long closings in the catering sector.
In some cases, brewers had to go over to destroying their stocks of beer because the use-by date had expired.
The more closely the companies were connected to the catering and event business, the more serious the slump in sales.
On average, the drop in sales was 23 percent last year.
Although sales of bottled beer for private consumption increased, the brewers earn lower margins from them.
beb / dpa
