Finnish all-in-one brewery is a wizard
Automation is a core part of the new Hartwall all-in-one brewery, cider and soft drinks production plant and distribution complex at Lahti, north east of Helsinki in Finland, which recently became part of Scottish & Newcastle (S&N) group.
The new plant is one of three S&N innovation centres. But the euro 234m investment in the fully-enclosed stainless steel mashing, boiling, fermentation, and filtering system means that the only sign that Lahti brews beer are the bottles of Karjala coming out of the warehouse on laser guided driverless automated trucks -- and possibly a stray beer mat with drinking instructions for Newcastle Brown Ale (which Hartwall imports from the UK).
Some 500 trucks a day leave the Lahti plant, delivering beer, cider and soft drinks, returning later full of empties -- the glass beer bottles and the plastic soft drinks bottles are all returnable and recyclable. And the brewhouse can process eight 750 hectolitre brews a day using the state-of-the-art Merlin wort boiling system, developed by the Krones group of Germany, which uses 50% less energy.
Marks & Spencer's technical manager Simon Allison has claimed 2009 will be "the year for automation" in Britain's food and drink industry. Do you agree?
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