Last February, Damm, Spain’s beer market leader, ordered a complete line for its El Prat de Llobregat facility near Barcelona. The line will produce different brands of beer in 33 and 50 cl cans at a rate of 90,000 cans per hour. High points of the deal include an innovative electronic volumetric can filler, the Starcans FM, and a complex integrated logistics project.

The Indian beer market has enormous potential. It’s still in the build-up phase, but the growth rates look extremely promising. Krones AG, Neutraubling, Germany, regards the Indian subcontinent as one of the key markets of the future. Krones and the Indian company Indian Dairy Machinery Company (IDMC) have accordingly agreed on a long-term alliance at this timely juncture, as they announced on the BRAU Beviale 2007 in Nuremberg. Free collaboration and joint pitches with quotations for numerous brewery projects have been practised since 2001.

KHS AG, internationally active manufacturer of filling and packaging equipment for the beverage, food, and non-food industries, has set up a new Technology Center at the company’s headquarters in Dortmund. For KHS, this investment means investing both in the future of the company and also investing in the future of customers worldwide. The new Technology Center has a floor area of about 1,000 square meters spread over two stories, and is linked to an existing Training Center. Theoretical training courses and practical training on the ‘nuts and bolts’ therefore complement one another outstandingly. The cutting-edge communication systems are used and are linked directly to the KHS network.

The European Brewery Convention (EBC) is pleased to announce its report “EBC – two years variety summary for 2005 and 2006; The new malting barleys for Europe; "Spring Barley”.

PIANETA BIRRA BEVERAGE AND CO features “Coffee in good spirit”.

Bere Mures, the biggest independent beer producer, has put itself on the market. Its owners are trying to find an investor to pay at least EUR 150 million. Potential buyers include SABMiller, which operates in Romania through its Ursus Breweries subsidiary, and an investment fund.

You would have thought that, after the botched privatisation of Belgrade’s BIP brewery in 2005, deal making in the Serbian market had come to an end. But no. In December Heineken announced that it is to acquire the MB Rodic Brewery, in Novi Sad.

At the end of July Prince Luitpold of Bavaria bought the 400 year old Oberbräu, located in Holzkirchen some 30 kilometres to the south of Munich, thus saving it from bankruptcy.

At a local court, Dr Gustavo Möller-Hergt, 45, was awarded three months’ salary or EUR 150,000 as compensation for his unfair dismissal in September last year.

With the appointment of Rainer Grimm as CFO, the privately owned Wild, one of the world’s leading suppliers of natural flavour ingredients to the food and beverage industry, is getting into shape for an initial public offering.