• Advertise
  • Contact Us
  • About Us
  • Supplier Directory
  • SCB YouTube
  • Login
  • Subscribe
  • Logout
  • My Profile

  • CORONAVIRUS
  • LOGISTICS
    • Air Cargo
    • All Logistics
    • Express/Small Shipments
    • Facility Location Planning
    • Freight Forwarding/Customs Brokerage
    • Global Gateways
    • Global Logistics
    • Last Mile Delivery
    • Logistics Outsourcing
    • LTL/Truckload Services
    • Ocean Transportation
    • Rail & Intermodal
    • Reverse Logistics
    • Service Parts Management
    • Transportation & Distribution
  • TECHNOLOGY
    • All Technology
    • Artificial Intelligence
    • Cloud & On-Demand Systems
    • Data Management (Big Data/IoT/Blockchain)
    • ERP & Enterprise Systems
    • Forecasting & Demand Planning
    • Global Trade Management
    • Inventory Planning/ Optimization
    • Product Lifecycle Management
    • Sales & Operations Planning
    • SC Finance & Revenue Management
    • SC Planning & Optimization
    • Sourcing/Procurement/SRM
    • Supply Chain Visibility
    • Transportation Management
  • GENERAL SCM
    • Business Strategy Alignment
    • Education & Professional Development
    • Global Supply Chain Management
    • Global Trade & Economics
    • HR & Labor Management
    • Quality & Metrics
    • Regulation & Compliance
    • SC Security & Risk Mgmt
    • Supply Chains in Crisis
    • Sustainability & Corporate Social Responsibility
  • WAREHOUSING
    • All Warehouse Services
    • Conveyors & Sortation
    • Lift Trucks & AGVs
    • Order Fulfillment
    • Packaging
    • RFID, Barcode, Mobility & Voice
    • Robotics
    • Warehouse Management Systems
  • INDUSTRIES
    • Aerospace & Defense
    • Apparel
    • Automotive
    • Chemicals & Energy
    • Consumer Packaged Goods
    • E-Commerce/Omni-Channel
    • Food & Beverage
    • Healthcare
    • High-Tech/Electronics
    • Industrial Manufacturing
    • Pharmaceutical/Biotech
    • Retail
  • REGIONS
    • Asia Pacific
    • Canada
    • China
    • Europe
    • Latin America
    • Middle East/Africa
    • North America
  • THINK TANK
  • WEBINARS
    • On-Demand Webinars
    • Upcoming Webinars
  • PODCASTS
  • VIDEOS
  • WHITEPAPERS
Home » Mexico’s Beer Shortage Culprit Isn’t Just Supply — It’s Demand

Mexico’s Beer Shortage Culprit Isn’t Just Supply — It’s Demand

0708_CoronaBeer.jpg
Boxes of Grupo Modelo SAB Corona brand beer move along a conveyor belt at the Cerveceria Yucateca Anheuser-Busch InBev SA facility in Merida, Mexico. Photo: Bloomberg.
July 8, 2022
Bloomberg

Mexican beer sellers who’ve struggled through bottle and can shortages are facing a new challenge keeping their shelves stocked: robust demand.

Plummeting sales during the pandemic followed by now-rebounding purchases have created a whiplash effect and another round of supply chain strains. That’s pushed prices higher and sent stores and their customers scrambling to ensure they don’t run out in a country that Kirin Holdings Co., the Japanese beer maker, ranked fifth worldwide in total beer consumption in 2020.

At Storybird, a distributor of Heineken beers near Mexico City, the sales manager has spent the past few months figuring out how to replenish his thinning stocks. The first beer to disappear was the 1.2-liter Dos Equis, whose dark green glass became hard to source. Then big bottles of Heineken and Indio became hard to get.

Shipping hubs in Mexico State or in Veracruz offered other beers made by the same parent company to make up for the gap, but clients still called to complain.

“The first sign, the first red flag, was in February, with the XX Lager,” said Ricardo Leon, 40, the Storybird manager. “There are days when we don’t meet our quota and we have to find a way to meet it. You bust your brain saying, ‘What do I do?’”

The price of Victoria and Corona beers, which are made by Grupo Modelo — the other beer giant in Mexico and property of AB InBev, went up 24% from late May to early June, according to a survey taken at supermarkets and wholesalers by El Financiero newspaper.

Earlier this week, a 12-pack of Negra Modelo regular cans was advertised for 216 pesos, or $10.46, on the Modelorama Now delivery site. But a recent attempt to try and get it delivered to a Mexico City location found it was sold out — leaving customers to settle for Corona Light, Victoria, or a mango-flavored Vicky beer.

Ivan Duran Gonzalez, 40, who runs a brick-and-mortar Modelorama store in the city of Zacatecas, saw customers panic-buy. Sales usually rise in the summer, but he was surprised when one patron bought 50 cartons. Others who usually bought a single 24-pack instead doubled up.

“They’ve told us that the shortage is because of the high demand, because everyone wants beer now,” he said, adding that in 15 years in business, “it’s the first time I’m seeing something like this.”

Heineken Mexico said in June that it would invest 1.8 billion pesos in a can-making plant in Meoqui, Chihuahua, near the U.S.-Mexico border, due to growing demand. Last year, Grupo Modelo announced the expansion of its glass plant in Veracruz.

Both Grupo Modelo and Heineken Mexico declined to comment.

Smaller beer producers have started to buy large quantities of bottles together to make sure they are not elbowed out of the market. Twenty companies affiliated with the Mexican Independent Craft Brewers Association, known as Acermex, bought 365,000 glass bottles together over the past year from a single Mexican provider, said director Cristina Barba Fava.

“Aside from the shortage of aluminum and glass, there’s a shortage of malt,” Barba said. “Our products continue to be available, but they’re more expensive. We’ve found a way around the lack of bottles and cans, but we’re talking about an increase of 20 to 25% of our costs.”

Some of the supply chain snarls have started to sort themselves out.

Jose Ramon Ruiz, 46, who supplies malt imported from Germany and the U.S. to craft beer companies in Mexico, said improvements to shipping now means he no longer has to wait three months for products. Now he puts in orders less than two months before he needs to replace inventory, since a container takes only three weeks to arrive from Europe.

He suspects high demand, both domestically and internationally, is more to blame for the current beer woes.

“When there weren’t enough cans, the natural thing for beer-makers to do was substitute them with bottles. You reach a point of maximum consumption of bottles, and the national makers do not have the capacity,” he said. “There is a question about the availability of raw materials, but I think there is more of an increase in demand than a decline in supply.”

RELATED CONTENT

RELATED VIDEOS

Global Supply Chain Management Supply Chains in Crisis Consumer Packaged Goods Food & Beverage Latin America North America
  • Related Articles

    Manufacturing Jobs on Decline Worldwide, And Globalization Isn't Main Culprit

    IT in the NFL: The Action Isn't Just on the Field

Bloomberg

Container Lines Are Set to Smash Year-Old Profit Record by 73%

More from this author

Wake up to live
“Supply Chains in Crisis”
updates and the latest Supply Chain News!

Subscribe to our Daily Newsletter

Timely, incisive articles delivered directly to your inbox.

Popular Stories

  • FedEx

    Can Rival Shippers Join Forces to Optimize Transportation?

    Logistics
  • This Uber-Like Solution for Trucking Grains Could Optimize U.S. Agriculture

    Supply Chain Data Is Key to Solving Global Food Crisis

    Supply Chain Security & Risk Mgmt
  • data

    Podcast | Quantum Computing for the Supply Chain: Is It Here Yet?

    Technology
  • code

    Achieving True Visibility Through a Supply Chain Control Tower

    Data Management (Big Data/IoT/Blockchain)
  • food warehouse

    Surging Retail Inventories Are Swamping U.S. Warehouses

    Transportation & Distribution

Digital Edition

Scb august 2022 sm

100 Great Supply Chain Partners of 2022

VIEW THE LATEST ISSUE

Case Studies

  • Returns Management SaaS Saves Retail Giant $4 Million Monthly

  • 3PL Doubles Productivity With Robots to Fulfill Medical Supply Orders

  • E-Commerce Company Cuts Order Fulfillment Time by 40%

  • Fashion Retailer Halves Fulfillment Time With Omichannel Automation

  • Distributor Scales Business by Integrating Warehouse Automaton Software

Visit Our Sponsors

Yang Ming Alithya Barcoding
Blue Yonder BNSF Logistics CoEnterprise
Data Capture E2open Generix
Geodis GEP GreyOrange
Here Honeywell Intelligrated IFM
Inmar Keelvar Kinaxis
Korber Liberty SBF Locus Robotics
Logility Lucas Systems Nvidia
Old Dominion ORTEC Parsyl
PMMI QIMA Redwood Logistics
Ryder E-commerce by Whiplash Saddle Creek Logistics Schneider Dedicated
Setlog Holding AG Ship4WD Shipwell
Tecsys TGW Systems Thomson Reuters
Tive Trailer Bridge Vecna Robotics
Verity Verusen  
  • More From SCB
    • Featured Content
    • Video Library
    • Think Tank Blog
    • SupplyChainBrain Podcast
    • Whitepapers
    • On-Demand Webinars
    • Upcoming Webinars
  • Digital Offerings
    • Digital Issue
    • Subscribe
    • Manage Your Subscription
    • Newsletters
  • Resources
    • Events Calendar
    • SCB's Great Supply Chain Partners
    • Supplier Directory
    • Case Study Showcase
    • Supply Chain Innovation Awards
    • 100 Great Partners Form
  • SCB Corporate
    • Advertise on SCB.COM
    • About Us
    • Privacy Policy
    • Contact Us
    • Data Sharing Opt-Out

All content copyright ©2022 Keller International Publishing Corp All rights reserved. No reproduction, transmission or display is permitted without the written permissions of Keller International Publishing Corp

Design, CMS, Hosting & Web Development :: ePublishing