One of Germany’s oldest family-owned brewers and co-packers, Rittmayer Hallerndorf, is installing its first canning line to expand filling capacity for the many breweries it serves.
Rittmayer Hallerndorf has bought a Craftmate C machine from German filling equipment manufacturer Krones. The move to cans has been driven by market demand for recyclable packaging in the Upper Franconia region of Bavaria.
“We take great care in ensuring sustainability in our company,” said brewery managing director Georg Rittmayer. “The can doesn’t weigh much, it boasts a high recycling rate and does not entail any losses in quality.”
The Craftmate C has a compact footprint and efficient changeover times, important for Rittmayer Hallerndorf’s contract business which manages a large selection of beers packaged in a range of can sizes from 250ml to 1,000ml. With 24 filling heads the Craftmate C is capable of filling 250ml cans at a rate of 16,000 per hour.
Rittmayer Hallerndorf fills up to 100,000 hectolitres a year and is one of the largest contract bottlers for beer in Upper Franconia. The region has traditionally been a hot-spot for brewing; it’s estimated that 200 breweries serve the population of 1.1 million. Many of the brewers are privately owned and small or medium-size operations.
The Krones Craftmate C filler will enable Rittmayer Hallerndorf to fill orders as low as 15hl per batch, helpful to its smaller customers and larger breweries when they launch speciality or limited-edition canned beers.
While the majority of beer is sold in bottles in Germany, anecdotal evidence from the Drinktec trade show in Munich last year suggested that craft brewers using cans primarily are making inroads into the nation’s traditional markets.
Brussels-based industry groups Metal Packaging Europe and European Aluminium believe that the European Union will top its more than 70% recycling rate for used beverage cans to reach a rate of 100% by 2030.
The Rittmayer Hallerndorf Brewery brews about 30,000hl of beer per year and marked its 600th anniversary last autumn.
