With the world’s two largest beer companies at its borders, the Florida Ice & Farm Co.–owned Cervecería Costa Rica, which has a monopoly on beer production in Costa Rica, could be facing some competition in its future, according to the daily La República.
With the purchase of 72% of the Colombian beer company Bavaria, which owns the principal brewery in Panama, the London-based SABMiller has edged against Costa Rica’s southern border. The company is the second-largest beer seller worldwide, has 150 brands, employs 39,358 people, and sells $12.6 billion annually, La República reported. To the north, InBev, the largest beer seller in the world by volume, has already entered the market in Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Guatemala. It has 200 brands worldwide, sells $8.57 billion a year, and has announced plans to enter the Costa Rican market in 2007.
The two beer giants dwarf Florida Ice & Farm, which sells $176 million and has 11 brands, but representatives say they are ready to face the competition. “Though this would be like a fight between a David and a Goliath,” Florida Ice spokesman Carlos Francisco Echeverría told the daily, “remember who won that fight.”
