CUBAN COMPANY LOS PORTALES STOPS PRODUCING ITS SOFT DRINK DUE TO LACK OF CANS

There are no cans for canning in Cuba. The Cuban company ‘Los Portales’ is unable to produce soft drinks due to the lack of cans. The production of domestic soft drinks in Cuba has suffered a 90% drop in the last three years due to a lack of cans. The state-owned company, with participation from French multinational Nestlé, barely produced 25 million units last year, compared to 278 million in 2019 and 112 million in 2020.

“With the only supplier of cans available in the market, we have incurred a high financial debt, and therefore, it has not been possible to honor that debt,” said the director of Los Portales, a producer of mineral water and soft drinks of the Ciego Montero brand.

Specifically, 55 percent of the company’s soft drink production corresponds to the can line and the remaining 45 percent to PET plastic bottles, in 1.5-liter or 330-milliliter formats. “As of 2019, we are experiencing a very serious situation with the can, as we have indebtedness due to a lack of liquidity of external financing. This is what has caused that, significantly, we cannot continue working with that line,” confirms Montero.

Regarding the possibility of looking for other suppliers or lines of credit in other countries, she explained that the can market is monopolized by U.S. transnationals, which Cuba cannot access due to the embargo.

“If I had enough money now to buy more cans, our supplier has a limited production situation due to the scarcity of raw materials such as aluminum. The other market we can access is China, but it is very far away and costs us a lot more,” he stresses.

However, by 2022, Los Portales expects to obtain 50 million cans of soft drinks, less than half of what was achieved in 2020, and a total production of 980,000 hectoliters. The plant’s main difficulties are related to the global increase in the price of aluminum cans and caps.