Simonds Farsons Cisk plc inaugurated a state of the art beer packaging facility at its Brewery in Mrieħel following a €27 million investment.
This latest investment in its operational facilities enables Farsons to produce and package beer and other beverages in exportable packages and somopening up new horizons for the future. The facility was inaugurated by the Prime Minister of Malta Joseph Muscat, followed by a blessing by the Archbishop Mons Charles J Scicluna.
Farsons Group Chairman Louis A Farrugia said: “This facility is another important milestone
as it makes it possible for the Group to implement its vision of establishing itself as a regional
player within the beverage sector. This major investment closely follows the €12.5 million
investment in the new Brewhouse, completed in 2012. Through our long term master plan, we
have replaced most of our critical operational assets investing €135 million in 26 years. Now,
Farsons is well placed to benefit from these investments for years to come.”
“Moreover, we have also invested in our brands commissioning an international design agency to upgrade the packaging livery, now at par with the world’s best. We have been working on
developing our export business over a number of years and achieving steady progress.
During 2015, we exported the equivalent of four hundred 20ft containers, while the number of export markets we have managed to penetrate has continued to increase. We now cover a total of 15mcountries across 5 continents: Clearly, this investment now gives us the ability to extend our export reach even further, in line with our business aspirations for the future.
Our investments are not only in the plant, the infrastructure and our brands but also in re-training and upskilling our workforce. It is our dedicated and committed workforce which is bringing ournvision to life and enabling us to reap the benefits of our investments while remaining a totallynowned Maltese Group led by Maltese management selling Maltese brands in Malta and othernmarkets,” added Mr Farrugia.
Group Chief Executive Norman Aquilina said that the beer packaging facility has a footprint
of 4,500 square metres, on three floors, and encompasses three packaging lines: two for
returnable and non-returnable glass bottles, and a canning line. The new lines will bring aboutm improved quality and productivity along with increased efficiency through automation, lowernenergy consumption and water reduction.
The project entailed the involvement of construction and technical expertise provided by Maltese and foreign companies coordinated by Farsons’ project team ably led by Chief Operating Officer, Engineer Ray Sciberras.
Mr Aquilina said: “Farsons now has the impressive capacity to package 30,000 bottles and
40,000 cans per hour to high European standards. The extensive bottling and canning machinery originates from Europe and the United States and has arrived in no less than 90 containers. The facility also has two floors for warehousing of all packaging materials, giving us some 57,000ncubic metres of storage space. The structure and design of this building along with the layout ofnthe packaging plant has been built in a way to optimise on the targeted efficiency whilst alsongiving us the productive flexibility in terms of the different packaging requirements andnmaximization of storage capacity.”
While dedicating more resources to new product development, Farsons will remain fully alignednwith the latest trends in beverage consumption. Moving forward, we will continue to focus onnfurther innovation and internationalisation of our business. This will continue to be the focus ofnour growth strategy. Today marks a very important step in this direction,” concluded Mr Aquilina.
