KEY POINTS:
If the rising price of cheese has been hard to stomach, more bad news is on the way - Lion Nathan is raising beer, wine, spirits and ready-to-drink prices from July 1.
Beer prices will rise by around 5.5 per cent, wine prices will increase by up to 3.9 per cent, and spirit prices will rise by around 5.3 per cent.
Those increases reflected an annual inflation adjustment to excise tax, and rising production and distribution costs that faced the company.
"All commodity prices have increased, and energy and fuel price rises are also impacting our overall costs of production and distribution" said Lion Nathan managing director Peter Kean.
"While we continue to work hard to look for efficiencies across our business, we simply cannot continue to absorb all cost increases and we have no choice but to pass on at least a portion of them to our customers." Kean said.
Headquartered in Australia, Lion Nathan is New Zealand's largest brewer whose brands include Speight's, Lion Red and Mac's beer, Oyster Bay and Mt Difficulty wine, and Johnnie Walker whisky.
- NZPA
