Beer lovers will soon find it difficult to get their favourite bottled beer as soaring energy costs lead to a shortage of glassware, a food and beverage wholesaler has warned.
Beer suppliers are already having trouble sourcing glassware. Glass bottle production is a typical energy-intensive industry. According to one of Scotland’s largest brewers, prices have increased by nearly 80% over the past year due to the many impacts of the pandemic. As a result, glass bottle inventories plummeted.
The UK beer industry could soon feel a shortage of glassware, said the operations director of the family-run wholesaler. “Our wine and spirits suppliers from all over the world are facing an ongoing struggle which will have a knock-on effect,” she said, “as a result of which we may see fewer bottled beers on UK shelves.”
She added that some brewers may be forced to switch to different containers for their products. For consumers, facing both food and beverage inflation and glass bottle shortages, an increase in spending on this front may be inevitable.
“Glass bottles are very important in the tradition of the beer industry, and I expect that while some breweries will switch to cans to ensure continued supply, there will be those who feel it will be detrimental to brand image, so inevitably, sourcing glass The added cost at the bottle is ultimately passed on to the consumer.”
The news follows a warning from the German beer industry, which said its small breweries could bear the brunt of the glassware shortage.
Beer is the most popular alcoholic beverage in the UK, with UK consumers spending over £7 billion on it in 2020.
Some Scottish brewers have turned to canning to help control rising packaging prices. An Edinburgh-based brewery has said publicly that it will sell almost all of its beer in cans rather than bottles from next month.
“Due to rising costs and availability challenges, we started introducing cans in our launch schedule in January,” said Steven, the company’s co-founder. “This initially only worked for two of our products, but with production prices so high, we decided to start producing all of our beer cans from June, except for a few limited editions each year.”
Steven said the company sells a bottle of about 65p, a 30 per cent increase in cost compared to six months ago. “If you think about the volume of beer we bottle, even for a small brewery, costs are starting to increase unacceptably. It would be a disaster to continue like this.”