Colombian brewery constructs new facility to meet demand

Colombian beer brewery Bavaria & CIA S.C.A. has constructed an additional brewery in Palmar de Varela, with three new lines from Krones.

Annual per-capita consumption of beer in Colombia comes to more than 50 L, ranking the country third in all of Latin America — and the uptrend continues.

The company has invested in the new brewery to meet the growing demand for beer in the region. It is also designed to meet the stringent sustainability standards to help it achieve AB InBev’s 2025 sustainability targets. The aim is to brew all products with solar energy and achieve net zero carbon emissions.

Krones and Bavaria have worked together in the past. Bavaria’s Barranquilla facility operates using some Krones machinery, including a canning line and a PET line.

With the Palmar de Varela facility, the company chose Krones solutions for its filling and packaging kit — opting for a 120,000 cph canning line and two returnable-glass lines, rated at 72,000 bph and 66,000 bph respectively.

Energy-savings modules were selected for the three lines, such as the LinaFlex pasteuriser, the Modulfill VFS-C filler for the canning line and the Modulfill HES for the glass lines, as well as a VarioClean CIP system. The bottle washer, tunnel pasteuriser and CIP system contain a supply system where hot water replaces steam as the energy source, allowing for efficient distribution throughout the brewery. This enables energy from the processing area of the brewery to be recycled in the packaging department, so it doesn’t have to be generated.