SABMiller Poland gets $100m upgrade

SABMiller plc, one of the world's leading brewers, announced on Tuesday that its Polish subsidiary Kompania Piwowarska will invest up to $100-million in an upgrade of its three breweries.

The majority of the investment is in the Tyskie brewery near Krakow in Silesia, where production capacity will be increased to serve growing demand for the Tyskie brand, which is Poland's best selling beer and biggest export brand. This forms part of a three year investment programme, with the majority of the investment already underway and to be completed by the end of fiscal year 2007.

Following the investment, the Tyskie brewery will be SABMiller's largest European facility, capable of producing over eight million hectolitres or 1.4 billion pints annually, equating to 16 percent of SABMiller's total European brewing capacity. SABMiller's total brewing capacity in Poland will rise from 12.5 million hectolitres to 15 million hectolitres.

The Tyskie investment includes a new, technologically advanced brewhouse and an additional packaging line, which will improve the packaging capacity across the country. Further construction is planned to extend the fermenting and maturation areas of the brewery, with the addition of 12 new fermenting tanks and eight new maturation vessels, the first stage of which will be completed in January 2007.

Commenting on the investment, Mark Bowman, managing director of Kompania Piwowarska, said: "Our investment decision to extend the production capacity in all the brewery plants has been driven by good growth in both the domestic beer market and the strong international demand for our brands. It not only enables us to maintain and improve the already high quality of our beer production, but also will help to meet the demand arising out of current sales growth."
Source:business.iafrica.com