Drew Dixon
Anheuser-Busch is well-known for producing beer for generations of customers around the world. But the brewer has reached a landmark that many are not so familiar with: shipping emergency drinking water.
Anheuser-Busch produced its 100-millionth can of emergency drinking water in recent days. That tradition has helped provide comfort and survival for victims of disasters, and has a long history that reaches right to Florida.
In 1960, Anheuser-Busch began producing drinking water to help victims of a hurricane in Florida. Hurricane Donna struck the Florida Keys 65 years ago. A project to help those victims is what prompted Anheuser-Busch to get into emergency water production right after that storm hit the island chain.
“Anheuser-Busch responded by canning 500 cases of emergency drinking water overnight and shipping them from Miami the following morning. As soon as our Anheuser-Busch plant manager and South Florida wholesaler partner realized the brewery’s tap line could be temporarily used to can water, ‘Operation Water’ was born, starting a tradition of tapping our local facilities and brewery networks across the country to quickly act during a crisis,” an Anheuser-Busch news release said.
That tradition was carried through last year’s hurricane season, when Anheuser-Busch provided canned drinking water to Sarasota and Manatee counties after Hurricane Helene. The company also delivered relief water to residents of the Big Bend area after Hurricane Debby.
Initially, drinking water production was sporadic for the brewing company. Then in the 1970s, the cans of emergency drinking water became a routine production element of Anheuser-Busch. The 100-millionth can rolled out of the brewer’s facilities at Fort Collins, Colorado, in April.
In 1988, Anheuser-Busch established a formal “water donation program” and started storing cans of drinking water to prepare for the next big emergency situation. The company’s motto evolved into “we can’t always predict when disaster strikes, but we can prepare.”
In 2019, that emergency drinking water effort evolved further when the brewing company partnered with the National Volunteer Fire Council (NVFC).
“We partner with the NVFC to supply volunteer fire departments with this scarce resource ahead of wildfire season when fires become more frequent. Over the last six years, we have distributed millions of cans of water to over 3,100 fire departments across almost all 50 U.S. states,” Anheuser-Busch noted.
