DARK DAYS: Svyturys brewery, in Klaipeda, faces labor strikes and a proposed marketing ban on alcohol.

KLAIPEDA - Lithuania’s market leading beer, Carlsberg Group-owned Svyturys Alus, or translated into English, ‘Lighthouse Beer,’ could be looking toward foggy futures ahead.
With company labor strikes in the pipeline for this month, set to disrupt production at their brewery in the city of Klaipeda, coupled with a proposed national alcohol advertising ban liable to come into force next year, the Danish-run brand has been on the front foot to come up with solutions.

A high percentage shift of the beer production, from Klaipeda to Utena, an industrial town in the northeast of the nation, second home to the joint manufacturer of the now named Svyturys-Utenos Alus, has allegedly left production volumes at Klaipeda’s brewery half that of three years prior. Disgruntled workers were questioning the reasons.
“As soon as the decision was made to transfer a part of production to Utena Brewery, the financial performance of the company deteriorated. An obvious tendency of the decrease in the company’s earnings, proportionate to the volume of the transferred production, can be observed,” claimed a spokesman on the European Commission sponsored Web site, beerworkers.org.

Read more at http://www.baltictimes.com/news/articles/29047/