Farsons celebrates third milestone in 80 years

A €24.5 million investment in two capital projects was inaugurated by President Eddie Fenech Adami in the presence of Farsons chairman Bryan Gera and Farsons group chief executive Louis Farrugia at Farsons Brewery in Mrieħel, on Wednesday.

Simonds Farsons Cisk plc has both a fully operational brand new packaging centre for soft drinks and a state-of-the-art logistics centre.

These important milestones in the company's history were planned to coincide with Farsons' 80th anniversary.

Held under a huge marquee set up between the two new projects, the inauguration ceremony was also attended by numerous overseas guests, representing companies like Anheuser Busch, Carlsberg, Pepsico, with which Farsons has a business relationship dating, in some case, several decades. There were also representatives from the US, Italy, and Russia who are all either buying Kinnie and/or Cisk products from Farsons or about to sign up. Overseas suppliers to the Wands subsidiary companies also attended.

Farsons chairman Bryan Gera paid tribute to the late Lewis Farrugia for his vision in seeing the potential of a brewery in Malta in the post-war era, and to the late Anthony Miceli Farrugia for additions to the company's portfolio, particularly Kinnie that made its mark in the soft drinks market in Malta and overseas. He praised the present group CEO for conceiving and managing the master plan for the brewery, a development that saw the brewery change in a physical sense, improve its mode of operation up to European standards making it one of the most advanced in the Mediterranean.

The last phase of the brewery master plan is the building of a new brewhouse, scheduled to start in mid-2009 and be in operation by the end of the first quarter of 2011. On completion, the main brewery building will be freed up and Farsons are planning to make good use of it as a possible business park for the financial service industry.

Construction works on the new centres started in spring 2005; the projects were implemented by a team from the company's management team and assisted by consultants.

The soft drinks line is capable of producing carbonated soft drinks, beer and beer mixers and both still and carbonated water. It can handle 50cl bottles at speeds of 18,000 bottles per hour.

The logistics centre has a fully computerised warehouse management system which allows bulk breaking and direct dispatch to trade. It has 11,000 pallet positions, a cooled area for beer, and seven levels of high bay racking.

An allocated area caters specifically for Wands' wines and spirits.

All structures are insulated and a building management system oversees energy efficiency. Fork lift trucks operate with a battery regeneration system, and new trucks meet Euro4 emission standards. While solar heating will be employed for non-industrial hot water, all rain water from the site will be collected.