Scottish & Newcastle closes Berkshire brewery

A deal by Scottish & Newcastle (S&N) to close its Reading brewery and move production to Coors’ brewery in Burton, will force Heineken to share a bed with Molson Coors in the UK in the future.

So much for the promiscuity of brewers. It seems like it can be hereditary too. While S&N, the UK’s number one brewer, is being being taken over by Carlsberg and Heineken, it announced plans to close its Berkshire Brewery by 2010 to save GBP 13 million (EUR 17 million) a year. Almost 400 jobs will go.

The closure of the brewery, which employs 362 staff on the outskirts of Reading, Berkshire, mainly producing Foster’s and Kronenbourg 1664, will cost GBP 22 million but is expected to save GBP 13 million a year. The 58-acre brewery was built in 1979.

Already in November 2007 S&N closed bottling facilities at the site and transfered 3 million hl of beer production to Coors Brewers, resulting in 250 job losses. It will be remembered that S&N has already closed other sites in England and Scotland in recent years in an attempt to cut costs.

The remaining brewing and packaging operations at Berkshire will be moved to other sites, including Tadcaster, North Yorkshire, the Royal Brewery, in Manchester, and Dunston, in Gateshead.

Although S&N said that it would try to relocate staff, most employees are expected to lose their jobs.