Empresas Polar

Stock performance

History

Empresas Polar began in 1941 when Lorenzo Mendoza Fleury founded the Cervecería Polar brewery in Caracas. In 1960 it launched Harina P.A.N., a precooked corn flour that made it easy to prepare arepas at home and became a household staple across Venezuela and the Venezuelan diaspora. The family-controlled group, now led by Lorenzo Mendoza, grew into the country's largest private company.

Business model

Polar produces and distributes beer (Polar, Solera), soft drinks through a bottling partnership with PepsiCo, and staple foods including Harina P.A.N., pasta, rice, and margarine, using one of the most extensive distribution networks in the country. It also makes and sells some of its brands abroad, notably in Colombia.

Market position

Polar is Venezuela's largest private company and dominates the domestic beer and corn-flour markets. Its scale has made it the main private counterweight to the state in the country's food supply.

Country impact

Polar has been at the center of Venezuela's political-economic conflicts for two decades, clashing with the Chávez and Maduro governments over price controls, foreign-currency allocation, and accusations of hoarding, and at times suspending production because it could not obtain imported raw materials. Its survival as a large private employer is a barometer of the space left for private business in Venezuela.