Boxes of Krombacher beer on sale in a Penny store, Vilshofen, Germany, 9 June 2022 (Image credit: IgorGolovniov // Shutterstock.com)

German drinks manufacturer Krombacher plans to shake up the bottling at its brewery to meet changes in demand.

The company is planning to spend more than €100m ($105.3m) over the next six years to overhaul the bottling of products at its site in western Germany.

Krombacher said the project was the “largest and most extensive” it had undertaken. The brewer, home to Krombacher Pils, was set up in 1803.

From 2026, the business plans to replace four bottling systems at the site while still keeping the facility up and running and supplying customers. Krombacher said the changes will be completed in 2030.

“Breweries process a large amount of empties every day, which makes continuous and rapid sorting necessary in order to feed them back into the production cycle. The sorting effort is extremely high due to the different bottle types and shapes. With the new systems, the process will be significantly more efficient,” Ludger Hence, Krombacher’s head of bottling, said.

In 2023, Krombacher’s output was close to flat at 7.6 million hectolitres while group revenue rose 6.6% to €951m. The brewer did not disclose its profits for the year.

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The company said drinkers want more “variety” and, in response, it is looking to offer a “wide range” of products, it said.

“At present, under the Krombacher brand, we produce not only alcoholic and non-alcoholic beers such as our Krombacher Pils but also malt-based soft drinks such as our Krombacher Fassbrause or low-alcohol beer mixed drinks such as Krombacher Radler. In doing so, we are also responding to the trend towards more variety in the beer segment and the desire for more non-alcoholic and low-alcohol products,” a spokesperson for Krombacher told Just Drinks.

“Due to the variety of different types of products with and without alcohol that we now produce at Krombacher, we also have to optimise our processes so that we can continue to deliver all of our products to our customers with high quality and efficiency in the future.”