CCU (Compañía Cervecerías Unidas)

CCU became a public company in 1902 from the Fábrica Nacional de Cerveza, formed in 1889 by merging Joaquín Plagemann’s Valparaíso brewery of 1850 with the Limache brewery. It went on to buy breweries across Chile, among them Anwandter of Valdivia. The Luksic family’s Quiñenco and Heineken control it together, and it has brewed Heineken under licence since 2003. Cristal, launched in 1978, and Escudo, a stronger lager of 1942, are its best sellers; it also owns half of Austral and of Kunstmann and runs CCU Argentina. It brews in Santiago, Temuco, Valdivia and Punta Arenas. In March 2026 its rival Cervecería Chile asked the competition tribunal to check whether CCU was keeping its promises on exclusive deals with bars.