Ot­to Car­ring­ton

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­ton@cnc3.co.tt

The re­cent­ly an­nounced dou­bling of the ex­cise du­ty on al­co­holic bev­er­ages in the 2025–2026 Na­tion­al Bud­get has be­gun to rip­ple through the lo­cal mar­ket, with Carib Brew­ery Ltd and An­gos­tu­ra yes­ter­day con­firm­ing im­me­di­ate price ad­just­ments across sev­er­al of their flag­ship brands.

In re­sponse to the new fis­cal mea­sures out­lined by Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dave Tan­coo this week, Carib was the first to an­nounce yes­ter­day that, ef­fec­tive im­me­di­ate­ly, con­sumers would see high­er prices on beers, stouts and malt bev­er­ages, in­clud­ing Carib, Stag, Guin­ness, Roy­al Ex­tra and Mal­ta.

Head of Mar­ket­ing at Carib Antron Forte said the com­pa­ny had “no choice” but to act in ac­cor­dance with the Bud­get’s ex­cise changes, de­scrib­ing the in­crease as a mea­sured and re­spon­si­ble ad­just­ment made to pro­tect busi­ness sus­tain­abil­i­ty while main­tain­ing af­ford­abil­i­ty.

“Based on the in­crease in ex­cise that has been shared by the Gov­ern­ment in the Na­tion­al Bud­get, we’ve had to change or ad­just our prices ac­cord­ing­ly,” Forte ex­plained.

“Not every brand has in­creased, but our brands that con­tain al­co­hol and malt, be­cause malt is af­fect­ed by ex­cise, have been in­creased,” he said.

The Gov­ern­ment’s Le­gal No­tice No. 376 dou­bled the ex­cise du­ty from TT$5.14 to TT$10.28 per litre, af­fect­ing all Cari­com-man­u­fac­tured and lo­cal­ly pro­duced al­co­holic bev­er­ages.

Forte ex­plained that while the brew­ery tried to ab­sorb some of the costs, the scale of the in­crease made that im­pos­si­ble with­out en­dan­ger­ing op­er­a­tions.

“Dou­bling the ex­cise and oth­er di­rect costs rep­re­sents a sub­stan­tial in­crease that can no longer be off­set with­out im­pact­ing the sus­tain­abil­i­ty of our op­er­a­tions,” he said. “We’ve done every­thing pos­si­ble to min­imise the ef­fect on con­sumers.”

Un­der the brew­ery’s new sug­gest­ed re­tail prices, Carib and Stag will now re­tail at TT$13, Roy­al Ex­tra Stout at TT$15, and Guin­ness and Heineken at TT$22. Mal­ta and Shandy bev­er­ages will cost TT$10.

Still, Forte em­pha­sised that many of Carib’s prod­ucts re­main un­changed, in­clud­ing Smirnoff Ice, Caribe Hard Cider, Vi­ta­malt, Gin­seng-Up, Smal­ta and Heineken 0.0, which do not at­tract the ex­cise in­crease.

“We want­ed to be fair and trans­par­ent,” he said.

“It’s a tough de­ci­sion and not easy to be the first to ad­just prices, but we had to en­sure that peo­ple clear­ly un­der­stand why these changes are hap­pen­ing and that some of their favourite brands re­main un­af­fect­ed.”

Forte al­so point­ed out that ex­tra-re­gion­al brands are not im­pact­ed by the new du­ty, cre­at­ing ad­di­tion­al pres­sure on lo­cal brew­ers.

“The ex­cise is spe­cif­ic to brands that are Cari­com-man­u­fac­tured and lo­cal­ly pro­duced,” he said.

“It does not af­fect ex­tra-re­gion­al brands and that puts lo­cal man­u­fac­tur­ers like us at a dis­ad­van­tage.”

The com­pa­ny said the new prices are per­ma­nent, form­ing a new base­line cost struc­ture un­less ad­di­tion­al gov­ern­ment fis­cal mea­sures are in­tro­duced. Carib has cir­cu­lat­ed a sug­gest­ed re­tail price list to help bar own­ers and re­tail­ers main­tain mar­gins while keep­ing prod­ucts af­ford­able.

“That sug­gest­ed re­tail price en­sures that our trade part­ners can still op­er­ate prof­itably and that con­sumers un­der­stand what to ex­pect,” Forte said.

“We want to make the tran­si­tion as clear and fair as pos­si­ble.”

Forte added that all ex­ist­ing pro­mo­tions will con­tin­ue as planned and that the brew­ery is ex­plor­ing new mar­ket­ing ini­tia­tives to help cus­tomers through the ad­just­ment pe­ri­od.

“We’re con­tin­u­ing with our pro­mo­tions and build­ing ex­cite­ment for the trade,” he said.

“Our goal is to en­sure our brands re­main ac­ces­si­ble and en­joy­able, even in the face of high­er costs.”

He added, “This is a re­spon­si­ble ad­just­ment in re­sponse to na­tion­al tax pol­i­cy and ris­ing costs. Carib Brew­ery re­mains com­mit­ted to en­sur­ing the con­tin­ued af­ford­abil­i­ty and ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty of our prod­ucts through strong part­ner­ships with dis­trib­u­tors, re­tail­ers, and cus­tomers.”

Mean­while, An­gos­tu­ra Ltd an­nounced that prices for its lo­cal­ly man­u­fac­tured rums will in­crease from to­day (Oc­to­ber 17).

In a re­lease yes­ter­day, the com­pa­ny said the ad­just­ments are nec­es­sary af­ter the ex­cise du­ty took im­me­di­ate ef­fect as part of the 2026 Na­tion­al Bud­get.

Un­able to ab­sorb costs

An­gos­tu­ra de­scribed it­self as a re­spon­si­ble cor­po­rate cit­i­zen with more than 200 years of her­itage in Trinidad and To­ba­go, adding that it sup­ports the Gov­ern­ment’s ef­forts to strength­en fis­cal sus­tain­abil­i­ty and na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment.

Ac­cord­ing to the com­pa­ny, it has ab­sorbed high­er pro­duc­tion costs over the years through im­proved pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, en­er­gy ef­fi­cien­cy, and in­no­va­tion to lim­it the im­pact on con­sumers.

“How­ev­er, this re­cent in­crease in ex­cise du­ty now re­quires price ad­just­ments to en­sure busi­ness con­ti­nu­ity and the con­tin­ued em­ploy­ment of our work­force of over 537 cit­i­zens,” An­gos­tu­ra said.

The com­pa­ny reaf­firmed its com­mit­ment to main­tain­ing the world-class qual­i­ty of its rums and bit­ters, sup­port­ing the lo­cal econ­o­my and sup­ply chain, and pro­mot­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go’s brands in more than 170 in­ter­na­tion­al mar­kets.

An­gos­tu­ra al­so ex­pressed ap­pre­ci­a­tion to its cus­tomers, trade part­ners, and stake­hold­ers for their con­tin­ued trust, stat­ing it will con­tin­ue to op­er­ate with trans­paren­cy and care, bal­anc­ing na­tion­al in­ter­est with con­sumer val­ue.

Pa­trons un­hap­py at hike

Guardian Me­dia took to the streets yes­ter­day to find out how cit­i­zens felt about the in­creas­es.

At a bar in Aranguez, San Juan, many were up­set but still com­mit­ted to drink­ing their favourite brew de­spite the price hike.

“Al­though the price is still high, we’re still look­ing for a vibe. I guess it’s a bit too ex­pen­sive—it could stay around $10, maybe $11 at most. I see op­tions like a Vi­ta Malt or a Smal­ta go­ing for about $8 or $9, but we’ll go through with it any­way. It’s a yel­low­ish drink, and, well, cheers!” one pa­tron said.

Bar own­er Vikash Ram­barath said the price in­crease was a bit steep, say­ing he will see how his cus­tomers will re­act when the new pric­ing comes in.

Some cit­i­zens took to so­cial me­dia with their com­ments.

David Ali post­ed on CNC3’s news page that he “thought the tax is on im­port­ed al­co­hol. I didn’t see they men­tioned raw ma­te­ri­als.”

Za­heer Mo­hammed post­ed, “Babash and moon­shine for it yes, bayrum lol.”

Carib Price Ad­just­ment Sum­ma­ry

Cat­e­go­ry* Brand*Sug­est­ed Re­tail Price

Non-Al­co­holic: Mal­ta, Shandy*$10

Beer: Carib, Stag TT$13

Stouts & Beer: Roy­al Ex­tra Stout*$15; Guin­ness $22; Heineken $22

No Price Change: Smirnoff Ice, Caribe Hard Cider, Vi­ta­malt, Gin­seng-Up, Smal­ta, Heineken 0.0, Rock­stone Ton­ic Wine