Anheuser-Busch announced Wednesday that it would shift production of signature beer Stella Artois from Europe to four of its U.S. breweries, including its St. Louis flagship, which will produce the beverage for domestic consumers.
The move is part of a two-year, $1 billion capital investment program at its U.S. production facilities that Anheuser-Busch announced last week. Shifting production of the U.S. Stella Artois supply will begin in the early summer and be complete by the end of the summer, said Brendan Whitworth, Anheuser-Busch U.S. chief sales officer.
In addition to the brewery upgrades, Anheuser-Busch will spend $296 million more on domestic production and distribution of Stella Artois in the United States over the same two-year period. The company did not disclose specific capital investment amounts for the St. Louis brewery nor any effect on jobs there, though Whitworth said "it's pretty significant."
Stella Artois traces its roots back to 14th century Belgium, where it is still largely brewed. It was the flagship beer of InBev, which acquired Anheuser-Bush in 2008 to form corporate parent and international alcohol conglomerate Belgium-based Anheuser-Busch InBev. Though Stella Artois has long been imported to the U.S., Whitworth said the company believes consumers will continue to see Stella Artois as a "premium beer" even if it's domestically brewed for U.S. consumers.
The shift to U.S. production will limit "international supply chain issues," Whitworth said, which cropped up in all sorts of industries in recent years as a result of trade tensions and then the covid-19 pandemic.
"To avoid those disruptions, to bring the best products possible to consumers, under a brand as premium as Stella Artois, we can do that with local production," Whitworth said.
Other Anheuser-Busch breweries that will begin producing Stella Artois for U.S. consumers are in Newark, N.J.; Jacksonville, Fla.; and Los Angeles.
Anheuser-Busch said last week it would inject $400 million into 12 of its U.S. breweries this year, largely to build production capacity for the popular hard seltzers American drinkers have been buying in growing quantities.