War in Ukraine has increased your prices of beer and snacks: Read here

Your next house party will pinch your pocket a bit more than last summer. Beer and chakhna (the Hindi word used to refer to snacks and finger foods consumed with alcohol) are set to get costlier as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that started in February continues.

Barley supply is down from Russia and Ukraine, the world’s second and fourth-largest producers. That has pushed up the cost of beer’s key ingredient.

Beer lovers may have to shell out 15-16 percent more for a drink as brewers want to offset rising costs.

Apart from some premium brands, Indian brewers do source barley locally, but prices here move in tandem with global prices due to supply disruptions.

A report by financial services firm Equirus said that barley prices were up 45 percent during the year, while the price of glass, another raw material required for packaging the brew, was up by 18 percent. Barley and glass make up for most of the costs of producing beer.

The rise in prices could slow down beer volumes that Equirus had expected to pick up sharply from the fourth quarter of FY22 onwards.

Alcohol prices vary from state to state in India, depending on excise duty rates. Telangana and Haryana are the only ones that have allowed manufacturers to increase alcohol prices.

The maker of Budweiser and Hoegaarden beers, Anheuser-Busch InBev, has requested policymakers to let manufacturers hike prices as brewers do not see prices easing anytime soon. Meanwhile, the maker of Indian craft beer Bira 91 B9 Beverages plans to push premium bottles to protect margin.

Russia and Ukraine also account for 60 percent of sunflower oil production. As hopes for bumper sunflower oil supplies from the nations faded, the world lined up to procure more palm oil from the largest-exporter Indonesia, leading to the commodity’s price shooting up in local markets and the country placing a ban on exports to protect local buyers.