Alcoholic beverages manufacturer South African Breweries (SAB) and the government have agreed to save millions of bottled beer from being thrown away due to lack of storage space at its factories, the brewer said on Tuesday.
SAB said in a statement that it has struck with the government under which the company will be allowed to transport millions of litres of stockpiled beer to storage facilities off its breweries.
The company had warned last week that its seven breweries are now at full capacity and unable to absorb any further inventory.
This scenario was “affecting any current beer in the production process being bottled and stored, culminating in the destruction and disposal of the inventory.”
“To overcome the problem, the SAB has collaborated with the government and reached an agreement which will enable the company to transport its beer inventory over the course of the next few weeks and avoid losses in excise tax for the government to the value of US$28 million,” the brewer said.
The SAB’s problem started during the current seven-week lockdown when it failed to sell more than 400 million bottles of beer due to restrictions on movements.
Under the Covid-19 lockdown rules, the sale and transportation of alcohol is banned.
SAB had announced last week that it was not legally allowed to store brewed beer once it had reached a certain capacity. Once breweries reach permissible limits, the alcohol needed to be stored at warehouses off site, it noted.
Due to the overstocking at the factories, the company warned that it was left with no choice but to start pouring the 130 million litres of beer into drains to create space at the breweries.
NM/jn/APA