The encyclopedia · Product & Design · Product decision · 2022–2025
AB InBev turns its beer bottle into a rain gauge for cassava farmers
Nativa beer's bottle geometry was redesigned to measure rainfall, giving Colombia's cassava farmers free weather data and protecting AB InBev's own supply.
AB InBev · Bavaria · Nativa
the move
Nativa is one of the few beers brewed from cassava, a root crop central to Colombian farming, and AB InBev buys 1,648 tons of it from farmers each year to brew the brand. In the 2022 rainy season the country's growers lost roughly 4.9m acres of crops, about a quarter of it cassava, because unpredictable rains struck at the wrong moment.
A commercial rain gauge costs about US$18 - roughly the monthly income of three farming families - so most growers had no way to predict a storm. AB InBev and L&C New York took the bottle farmers already buy and measured its geometry, adding rainfall scale markings and a printed key to show whether precipitation had been light, intermediate or heavy.
The bottle's normal shape and branding were kept, so the product still read as Nativa beer while silently becoming a measuring instrument. Farmers gained the same weather data a professional gauge gives, could time spraying and harvest, and the brewery protected the cassava crop that feeds its own production. The idea was then expanded to other AB InBev brands in climate-affected Andean markets.
why it works
- The bottle already reaches the exact farmers who need the tool, so distribution is free.
- A US$18 gauge was unaffordable; repurposing a 34-cent bottle made weather data accessible.
- Protecting cassava secured the brewery's main ingredient, aligning a CSR story with supply.
- Keeping the existing brand identity meant no new channel or awareness spend was needed.
what transfers
If the raw material you depend on is at risk, you do not have to build a new tool - you can repackage the product you already sell into that tool, because it reaches the exact people who need it.
what came after
The initiative spread to farmers across Colombia's cassava-growing regions and was scaled to other AB InBev beer brands in Peru, Chile and Ecuador. AB InBev reported hundreds of thousands of acres of farmland now protected and cassava saved, steadying Nativa's production into 2024 and the first quarter of 2025. The work earned D&AD Pencils and a Cannes Lions recognition.
references
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