* Polar a tougher target than previous Chavez takeovers
* Company known for popular beer, corn products
* Tense relationship between Chavez, Polar owner
By Brian Ellsworth
CARACAS, March 16 (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is threatening to take over food company Empresas Polar, a company that makes the country's top beer, but it could be an unpopular move.
Faced with inflation that reached 30 percent last year and tumbling oil revenues, the socialist leader has stepped up confrontations with food businesses through state takeovers, new regulations and warnings he may nationalize Polar if it does not produce food at lower prices.
That would pit his self-styled revolution against a company that makes many popular products including the signature Pilsener Polar beer and the corn flour used in "arepas," Venezuela's traditional griddle cakes.
"I think the government has done a lot of good things, but taking over Polar, I really don't like that idea," said Ana Tovar, a grocery store employee in the poor Caracas neighborhood of La Vega.
"Those are the products that people like. I try to sell others and people don't buy them," she said, standing in front of a pile of pasta, rice and other Polar products.
Beer-drinking Venezuelans prefer Polar, whose logo pops everywhere from malls frequented by the well-heeled to baseball games packed with working-class fans. Shacks in Caracas slums often have stacks of Polar beer cases in their yards.
"Their products are good, you can't complain about them -- the corn flour, rice, and especially the beer," says electricity worker Ricardo Prieto, 40.
Caracas-based polling group Datanalisis says a 2008 survey showed 97 percent of respondents like Polar's products and 96 percent believe the firm is working to help the country. Half called it the most prestigious company in Venezuela.
The privately-owned company did not respond to a request for an interview.
If Chavez carries through his threat, Venezuela's largest food producer would be run by state bureaucrats who have a reputation for inefficiency.
Opened as a small Caracas brewer in 1941, Polar in 1943 brought in a Czech brewmaster to develop a Pilsener-style beer that included corn. This later led Polar to produce its own corn and begin supplying it for Venezuelans corn-heavy diet.
POPULAR COMPANY
The company in the 1950s was the first to produce pre-cooked corn flour, now a staple item in Venezuelan homes used to make arepas.
Chavez's popularity fell in 2007 after his efforts to enforce price controls led to shortages of staples like milk.
Previous nationalization have focused on softer targets than the popular Polar.
Supporters applauded the 2007 takeover of telecom company CANTV, a privatized former state enterprise widely resented for a long-running dispute over payments to retirees, and few objected to seizure of assets held by oil giant Exxon Mobil.
Chavez this month nationalized a mill owned by U.S. food giant Cargill after occupying two Polar rice mills on charges they were not producing enough rice at regulated prices.
Chavez has a tense relationship with the company. Polar owner Lorenzo Mendoza, 42, listed by Forbes Magazine as having a fortune of $5 billion, is part of an elite Chavez describes as an enemy of his self-styled revolution.
In 2003 Chavez imposed price controls on staples, including much of what Polar produces, and frequently accuses it of selling above regulated prices or controls with specialty products such as flavored rice not subject to them.
Polar and opposition economists say the price controls are set below the cost of production and force losses.
"Polar should be regulated, like any other company, but not taken over" said William Lopez, 36, a clothing merchant.
"If they take over Polar, what are we going to drink? (Additional reporting by Enrique Andres Pretel, editing by Alan Elsner)