Anheuser-Busch is helping Hurricane Harvey disaster victims by suspending their beer production and canning water instead. The Cartersville, Georgia plant responsible for producing 24 different varieties of beer, shut down one of its production lines to produce hundreds of thousands of cans of water that will be shipped to the zone impacted by Hurricane Harvey.
Anheuser-Busch stopped beer production last year to make and ship canned water to Hurricane Matthew victims. Kevin Farenkrog, General Manager from the plant, told local media that they got an urgent call from the American Red Cross asking for water and they immediately went to work. In just a day, they produced 800,000 cans of water that were sent to coastal areas hit by the storm. 450,000 of those cans were shipped to storm shelters and victims in the path of Hurricane Matthew’s devastation in Florida. Areas getting the canned water include Deerfield Beach, West Palm Beach, Fort Pierce, Orlando, Melbourne and Daytona Beach.
“We are humbled to be able to help out our neighbors in urgent times like this,” said Craig Tomeo, Senior General Manager of Anheuser-Busch’s Jacksonville Brewery. “Putting our production and logistics strengths to work by providing safe, clean drinking water is the best way we can help right now.”
“Throughout the year, we periodically pause beer production at our Cartersville, Georgia brewery to produce emergency canned drinking water so we are ready to help out communities across the country in times of crisis,” Cartersville Brewmaster Sarah Schilling said in a written statement. “Putting our production and logistics strengths to work by providing safe, clean drinking water is the best way we can help in these situations.” For now, Anheuser-Busch is sending more than 50,000 cans of water to be distributed to those affected by Harvey. The cans will be distributed to the Red Cross facility in Baton Rouge, and will go from there to those in the disaster zone
