Latvian beer industry is currently at its historically lowest point. We have gone from beer makers to beer importers, said Latvian Society of Independent Brewers (LNAB) chairman and “Labietis” brewery manager Reinis Pļaviņš in an interview to LETA, adding that 60% of the beer consumed in Latvia is imported.
According to him, since 2016 Latvians drink more imported beer than locally brewed beer, which is completely against the interests of small brewers and the state.
“Of the 150-160 million litres consumed, 100 million litres was imported. This hurts us the most, because 150 years ago Latvia exported beer all the way to Kamchatka – the entire territory of the former Russian Empire. Riga and Latvia were basically the beer brewing centre with the biggest, most modern and most capable of export beer breweries All that’s left from then is beer bearing Latvian names imported to the country. “Lielvārde”, “Madona”, “Lāčplēsis”, “Aldaris”, partially “Bauska” and “Mežpils” – none of them are produced in Latvia,” said Pļaviņš.
He said the Baltic market is small, and brewers situate their production facilities where it is the most economically beneficial. This makes the remaining Baltic market into consumers. “Unfortunately, in Latvia’s case two of the biggest global players – Carlsberg (“Aldaris”) and Royal Unibrew (“Bauskas alus”, “Lielvārde”, “Lāčplēsis”, “Līvu”, “Madonas”) – have decided its economically a better solution to produce in neighbouring countries and only sell in Latvia. Recently, data were published on the countries that import beer the most, and Latvia ranks third in the world. Each resident, including infants and elderly people, pays EUR 55 every year for beer that is not produced in Latvia,” he said.
He said this is why at the beginning of the year Latvia’s independent brewers joined forces in order to fight back against global players at least to some extent. “When we founded the association, we were 14 breweries. Two more have joined since then. We have the potential to increase our numbers by another 10-15. We will definitely return to this topic again, because due to the shortage of time, we haven’t yet reached out to other small breweries,” said the chairman of the association.
He also stressed the main objective of the association is preserving and promoting the development of Latvia’s beer industry. “For the past 10 15 years, the beer industry has seen a decline in both beer consumption and the share of local beer in total consumption. The brewing industry is the oldest industry, mentioned already in the Chronicle of Indriķis, beer has been sung in thousands of folk songs, has become part of the Latvian identity, so it is very sad that it is now in decline,” said Pļaviņš.