Page 36 - FoodFocusThailand No.157 April 2019

SPECIAL FOCUS
SPECIAL FOCUS

The Faxe Brewery in Denmark fills around 70 per cent
The Great Dane containers per hour, the Faxe Brewery
of its beers in cans. The majority of them are
exported. With a new line rated at 72,000

has now once again upsized its filling capacity
for cans.

The Faxe Brewery was founded The biggest challenge for both planning engineers and Faxe’s
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in 1901 in the eponymous town on the technical management was to integrate the new line into the existing
east Danish island of Zealand, and for decades was hall. After all, the brewery operates a total of nine lines in one hall, all
one of many small Danish breweries. It was not until the 1970s of them installed in a very confined space.
that it outgrew the borders of its locality and began to distribute its “Firstly, it was a challenge, because the space available was
beers nationwide. Probably the biggest change in the firm’s history extremely limited. Secondly we had to install the line and make the
took place in 1989, when Faxe merged with the Jyske Bryggerie and requisite modifications while the adjoining lines continued to be run at
with Royal Unibrew to form what is today the second largest brewing full production speed,” explains Keld Norup Lauridsen, “and that while
conglomerate in Denmark. coping with almost 700 SKUs to be handled in the filling operations – so
2017 was the group’s most successful year so far. The Faxe it was a very complex job.”
Brewery alone produced 2.3 million hectolitres of beer and 1.6 million So the new line is finally installed in two phases within a one-year
hectolitres of soft drinks, malt beverages and cider. These figures period: first the wet end, then the dry end. And although the new line
include production under licence of Heineken beers and Pepsi-Cola handles more than twice as many containers as the previous 40,000-
soft drinks. cph line, it nonetheless had to be accommodated on the same footprint,
which is why we decided on a two-level configuration.
Strong Focus on Export
Faxe produces 23 different worts; the proportion of exports is extremely Accommodated on a Minimised Footprint
high at around 70 per cent. Royal Unibrew is thus Denmark’s biggest The new canning line is dimensioned for a rating of 72,000 cans per
beer exporter, with deliveries to 75 different nations. hour. It was installed in three hall areas and on two levels.
The hall consists of three sections. On one side are the ramps, via
Beer exports are concentrated in 26 countries, most which new cans and glass bottles are delivered. The container sweep-
of them in Europe off depalletising can sweep-off depalletiser, with its high-level discharge,
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Of the 70 per cent of beers exported, about 30 per cent go to Germany. transports the containers to the second, higher level. There they are
Then Danish consumers re-import the beer directly again in small passed by an air conveyor over a distance of several hundred metres
quantities – duty-free. This phenomenon is attributable to the beer tax, to the wet end, which is located at the opposite side of the hall.
which in Denmark is almost four times as high as in Germany. The Once they’ve arrived at the wet end, the empty cans are first of all
fastest of the four canning lines, rated at 90,000 cans per hour, works passed through an empty -can inspector , which is likewise located on
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almost solely for these cross-border exports. the higher level. Upstream of the system for container separation an
In Germany itself, the most familiar Faxe package is the 1-litre can appropriate buffering section was required, which for reasons of space
known as “The Great Dane”, which is mostly offered at motorway had to be designed in the shape of an S-curve. A tilted rinser then
services and in some supermarket chains. The demand for this product moves the cans downwards to the infeed of the high technology can
has nearly doubled in the past two years. The cans are filled on an filler . With its 130 filling valves featuring inductive flow meters, this
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in-house line rated at 22,000 cans per hour. ensures maximised accuracy during filling. The filled cans, inspected
Royal Unibrew’s most important beer export nation, however, is for the correct fill level, are then passed through a warmer , in order to
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Italy, where the Ceres Strong Ale brand in particular is very popular. avoid subsequent condensation. A vertical worm conveyor thereupon
Depending on the time of year, five to ten trucks daily leave the plant lifts the cans onto the high-level conveyors leading to the packer.
headed for Italy alone. It would almost be worthwhile building a brewery The packing and palletising zone is located in the middle segment
down there, “but the Italian consumers want original imports,” says of the hall. Its heart is a robotic grouping station and a palletiser ,
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Keld Norup Lauridsen, Head of Production and Warehouse. “But by which operates with a high-level infeed. The robotic grouping station 6
continually improving our operational efficiency we can remain is installed on the upper level, and from the packer receives the cans
internationally competitive.” packed in wrap-around cartons or shrink-wrapped, via a vertical worm
conveyor. The finished pallets are then automatically stored in a high-
Overcome Limited Space Available bay warehouse.
Since the demand for its brands has been steadily rising in recent The new line handles around 100 SKUs – it is run in three shifts
years, Faxe decided to invest in a new canning line. This nowadays during the week, with an additional shift at the weekend, so it’s already
fills both beer and cider, plus soft drinks, for outputs of up to 72,000 at full capacity utilisation. The mixer , likewise newly installed, is not
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containers an hour. “In terms of soft drinks, we’ve come up against intended solely for the new canning line, but can at need be used for
the limits of our capacity, whereas with beer, thanks to the new line, all the lines. Besides the Pepsi-Cola products, it also prepares the
we now have free additional capacities of around 300,000 hectolitres products of the firm’s own soft drinks brand Faxe Kondi, for example.
in the filling area again,” explains Keld Norup Lauridsen.
36 FOOD FOCUS THAILAND APR 2019

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