Australia's second largest brewer recalls 43,000 bottles over broken glass

Australia's second largest beer producer has been forced to recall up to 43,000 cases of beer because of possible small pieces of glass in the product, just before the start of Australia's traditionally busy holiday season sales.

Carlton & United Breweries, which was bought by SABMiller Plc in 2011, said in a statement on Thursday the recall is isolated to its Carlton Dry bottles from one production run in Queensland during October.

Carlton & United is still investigating the cause but initial observations suggest it happened during packaging, a spokesperson told Xinhua on Friday.

"This sort of thing is rare but we take the quality of our beers seriously," the company said.

The national recall applies to all of Australia's major retail liquor chains, along with bars and hotels around the country, just before the festive summer season where beer and other alcohol sales soar.

It's believed the company has sufficient supplies to move stock to affected areas experiencing shortfalls.

SABMiller Plc has a 43 percent market share, supplying 10 million cases of beer annually to the domestic market through its Victoria Bitter, Crown Lager, Carlton Draught and Cascade brands, second only to Japanese-owned Lion (48 percent) that sells brands including Queensland dominate XXXX Gold, Tooheys and West End.

The recall has also presented an unwelcome distraction to SABMiller's plans to seek regulatory approval of a 107 billion U.S. dollars global merger with Anheuser-Busch InBev. Endit