The recall was announced on Friday, according to Reuters, Canada, creating a bit of a setback to the start of traditionally busy holiday season sales.
Melbourne-based Carlton & United Breweries, which SABMiller bought in 2011, released a statement saying it had recalled 43,000 cases of its low-carb Carlton Dry beer because of an unspecified issue that came about “as a result of packaging.”
Jennifer Howard, a spokesperson for the company said Carlton and United have received about a dozen customer complaints about chipped glass at the top of the glass beer bottles.
The company is still investigating the issue but says the problem most likely occurred during the bottling process. Its beers are sold at major retailers, including Woolworth’s, as well as independent retailers, bars and restaurants across Australia.
The company statement said, “This sort of thing is rare but we take the quality of our beers seriously,” it said. The batch was made in Queensland state in October. The recall effects Carlton Dry 355mL bottles with expiration dates of July 19 and 20, 2016.
The recall comes at a bad time for the company as it attempts to win over regulators around the world for the proposed $106 billion buyout from rival Anheuser-Busch InBev ABI.BR. Anheuser-Busch, headquartered in Leuven, Belgium. is the world’s largest brewer and has a 25 percent global market share.
In October 2015, Anheuser-Busch InBev announced it had made a successful all-cash bid to buy out multinational competitor SABMiller for £69 billion ($106 billion). The buyout is now in the hands of regulatory and anti-trust authorities.
