Belgian brewers are facing a major shortage of bottles and some breweries have had to cut their production as a result, Belgian broadcaster VRT reported on 20 June 2007. The shortage was partly due to the warm weather, which accelerated beer sales in the first five months of the year by 3% from a year ago, the report said. The problem was exacerbated by the fact that glass production was falling across Europe and many returnable bottles were not returned by consumers. Beer market leader InBev said the shortage has not affected production so far, but the company hopes to solve the problem by collecting more used bottles. Brewer Jean-Luc Suys confirmed that the brewing industry is experiencing major problems at the moment. Brewers are trying to get consumers to return as many bottles as possible. However, some brewers have to halt production at least once a week. Glass importer Pascal Van Stuyvendael told VRT that the glass shortage was noticeable throughout the European market, as a number of bottle factories have scaled down production and glass furnaces have been shut down.
