Rising costs are forcing Swiss breweries to tap out

Small breweries, which have been very popular in Switzerland in recent years, are now falling victim to the tough economic climate. Rising costs of raw materials are weighing heavily on the beer market.

In 2021, Switzerland had the highest density of breweries in the world, with 1,278 establishments, most of them run by amateurs. Three years later, there are 86 fewer.

Until 2022, Thomas Dequesne was producing beer with his partners Dogzilla. After just two years, they decided to close the doors of their microbrewery.

“If we wanted to be profitable with the beers we were selling, we had to sell them at fairly high prices compared with the big breweries, which can afford to produce large quantities and lower their prices,”, Dequesne told Swiss television RTS.

Big players also affected

To avoid closure in the face of rising energy and raw material costs, Didier Anthamatten has restructured his microbrewery and drastically reduced production.

“I sold the plant and handed over the premises. I’ve kept one major customer for whom I now only make casks. That’s a small income, and I’ve gone into partnership with the B2F brewery, where we are now. As a result, costs have gone down, because we’re sharing infrastructure,” explains the manager of Brasserie de l’Atelier.

The economic climate is also weighing on the major groups. Debt-ridden Chopfab Boxer has just narrowly avoided bankruptcy thanks to a takeover by Locher.

“To my knowledge, this is the first time we’ve had such high prices. We’ve had a 60% increase in our electricity costs, as well as for all our supplies, cardboard, aluminium and bottles. All our suppliers have increased their prices,” says Christophe Gerber, sales manager for Chopfab Boxer.

Chopfab Boxer has also increased the price of its beer. At the same time as beer production costs are rising, people are drinking less and less of it. Between 1990 and 2022, per capita consumption fell from 71 litres to 53.