Heineken’s Sedibeng brewery officially opened
The Sedibeng facility is built on an 83 ha site comprising the brewery, a production plant and a warehouse managed by Brandhouse. The brewery is expected to produce 4 million hl by September, and eventually up to 6 million hl.
Johan Doyer, Managing Director of the brewery noted that the brewery had been constructed three months ahead of schedule. This made possible the brewing of Amstel to begin in September 2009, while the brewing of Windhoek began in October and Heineken started in December.
Sedibeng employed around 3,500 people on site at the height of the construction phase. More than 225 permanent jobs will have been created at the brewery by the end of 2010.
It is estimated that the brewery will generate an additional EUR 100 million for the local economy through the indirect employment of 100 support service workers and through the local purchasing of packaging and raw materials.
The Sedibeng Brewery has also allowed Brandhouse to re-introduce Amstel Lager in a returnable bottle format, to replace the existing one-way bottles. This is in response to local custom – and to SAB’s market dominance. The returnable quart segment comprises the overwhelming share of the local beer market.
Heineken believes that its ability to offer customers its premium product in this format will allow it to take market share away from SAB.
South Africa’s beer market has been more or less flat at 26 million hl.
At the end of March 2010, it was reported that Heineken and Diageo concluded talks with a South African investor to build a USD 68 million malting facility with a capacity of 100,000 tons annually.
The malting plant is to be built by Fabcos (Foundation for African Business and Consumer Services), which focuses on township and rural-based formal and informal businesses. Construction will being in the last quarter of 2010.
Sedibeng currently imports 45,000 tons of malt per year because there are not enough malting facilities in the country.
South Africa has two malting plants.
