Cervecería Nacional (Ecuador)

The company’s history starts in 1887 with the Guayaquil Lager Beer Brewery Association, which made beer and ice in the Las Peñas quarter by the Guayas river. Its plant burned in the city’s great fire of 1896 and was rebuilt; in 1913 a new owner created Pilsener, still Ecuador’s best-selling beer, and Club followed in 1966. From 1940 the brewery gave imported barley seed to farmers in the highlands. It joined Colombia’s Bavaria group in 1983, SABMiller in 2005 and AB InBev, its majority shareholder, in 2016; its shares still trade in Ecuador. It brews in Guayaquil and at Cumbayá near Quito, and more than 2,000 barley farmers grow for it under contract.