This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

Venezuela’s largest beer manufacturer is shutting some of its breweries, blaming a lack of imported barley, as its parent company remains locked in a wider dispute with the country’s government.

The federation of beer brewers announced on Thursday that the beer-making subsidiary of Empresas Polar would suspend operations at two of its six plants owing to the shortage. Polar is Venezuela’s largest privately held company and distributes a majority of the country’s beer.

Venezuelan troops, meanwhile, occupied a Caracas warehouse complex used by Empresas Polar and Nestlé, workers and company officials said on Thursday. The government says the land is needed for housing for the poor.

A Nestlé spokesman, Andres Alegrett, said the company had been informed by the facility’s owner that the area was being expropriated and the firm was preparing alternative means of distribution.

Venezuela is suffering what is believed to be triple-digit inflation and severe shortages of staples including cooking oil, toilet paper and sugar that businesses blame on the socialist government’s economic policies. The government says an “economic war” is behind the problems.

The brewery closures announced on Thursday could affect a quarter of domestic beer production, according to the beermakers’ federation, which also said the plants could start gearing up again as soon as next month if raw materials came through as expected.

President Nicolas Maduro has accused Polar of sabotaging the economy by hoarding goods and intentionally creating shortages, a charge the company has denied.



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Polar has also been is embroiled in a dispute with union workers demanding pay raises. Members of some of the dozens of unions representing Polar workers have shut down breweries and limited distribution of the small bottles of light beer that are favoured in Venezuela.

While there are no signs of shortages on shelves so far, the company says it is struggling to get deliveries to the central part of Venezuela.

This month the head of Venezuela’s liquor store federation warned the nation was about to run out of beer because producers had reached “zero hour” amid widespread shortages in raw materials.

Days later he was detained for reasons that remain unclear.