Delta Beverages defends beer price hike

Delta Corporation has defended its recent beer price increase arguing it needed to realise real value from its products and improve margins.

Last month, the brewer hiked the wholesale price of 375ml brown bottle beer to $0, 90 from $0,80 while 340ml green bottles went up by $0,20 to $1.

"The real reason (behind the price increase) is that we were just leaving money on the table.

"We are the guys with the infrastructure, we invested in the business and the consumers were actually just paying off the middlemen to make all the profit," said chief executive Pearson Gowero.

"Really, what we did when we increased the prices, was to make sure we get a fair share of the value that we had created," he said, adding that "so you find that even after the price increase, the consumer has not actually felt anything."

Gowero noted that the $1 per pint price was the "sweet spot" as it had a psychological edge of being the fair retail price."

The price increase was on the back of government's decision in the 2013 National Budget to review excise duty upwards from 40 percent to 45 percent to boost revenue inflows.