The price of a glass of beer in Finland is likely to rocket, the Federation of the Brewing and Soft Drinks Industry has warned, referring to the soaring costs of ingredients and production.
“It will inevitably be passed on to prices at some point,” federation spokeswoman Tuula Loikkanen told national broadcaster Yle.
The increase is driven by a spike in electricity and malt prices, both essential to the brewing process. Malt producer Viking Malt said barley prices have soared since the start of the conflict in Ukraine, as have other grain prices.
“If we compare prices with one year ago, we're definitely at a higher level. The cost of wheat and barley has nearly doubled,” Christian Tallskog, a sourcing manager at Viking Malt, explained to Yle.
According to Statistics Finland, the cost of growing wheat in Finland has risen by 114 percent since last year alone. The agency said that as well as the Ukrainian conflict and rocketing production costs, the harvest has been impeded severely by a dry spell which affected many other countries across Europe.
Electricity prices in Finland have been rising since 2021, reflecting Europe's energy crisis worsened by sanctions against Russian oil and gas supplies. In June 2022, the average wholesale electricity price in Finland stood at 140.33 euros per megawatt-hour, an increase of more than 154 percent from the same month a year before.
To counter rising production costs, Loikkanen has suggested that Finland lowers its tax on alcohol. Like fellow Nordic nations, Finland has for decades aimed to mitigate alcohol-related harm by using high taxation to limit the availability of booze. Its alcohol policy is comparatively strict, with a state monopoly controlling prices and reducing access.
Total alcohol consumption in Finland peaked in 2005, when 12.1 liters of alcohol were consumed annually per capita among those aged 15 and over, but has been in steady decline since then.