Beer sector grows every year and expands options for consumption, points out yearbook

The brewing sector grew 11.6% in 2022, with the opening of 180 new establishments in the country. In all, Brazil registers 1,729 breweries. The information is from the Yearbook of Beer 2022, released by the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock (Mapa) last Wednesday (5).

Over the past decade, growth has been significant. And many new options have appeared on the market, as explained by the Executive President of the National Association of the Beer Industry (SINDICERV), Márcio Maciel. “There are more than 10 times the number of breweries we have today than we had 10 years ago. Big breweries entering Brazil, increasing the diversity of products that are being offered here, and Brazilians getting to know the diversity that beer has, this made the small ones also start to develop products with regional flavors of Brazil, new types of beer, which is helping our sector to grow a lot”, comments Maciel.

The constant growth of the sector puts Brazil in third place as the largest beer producer in the world, behind China and the United States. The sector has significant movement, as highlighted by the president of the Brazilian Association of Craft Beer (Abracerva), Gilberto Tarantino.

“In general numbers, we have an estimate of more than 2 million direct and indirect jobs. We are talking, according to official data from the Ministry of Agriculture, of 14.2 billion liters produced last year, which represents approximately 2% of the national GDP”, enumerated the president of Abracerva.

Still according to the yearbook, there was no decrease in the number of establishments in any unit of the Federation. Among the states with the highest number of breweries is São Paulo, with 387 establishments, followed by Rio Grande do Sul, with 310, and Minas Gerais, with 222.

Among the biggest challenges faced by the sector is taxation, as highlighted by the chief executive of SINDICERV. “We need structural reforms that make it easier to undertake, pay taxes and generate income in Brazil. For example, the tax reform, we need a sign of tax reform that in fact brings simplification to paying taxes in Brazil, and that does not bring an increase in the burden. The Brazilian, for every beer he buys, he has a 56% tax embedded in its price. No country in Latin America has as much tax as Brazil does”, criticizes Maciel.