A ceremonial opening of Budweiser Budvar’s new logistics centre took place today

České Budějovice, 5th October 2018 – A ceremonial opening of Budweiser Budvar’s new logistics centre in Kněžskodvorksá Street took place this morning. The construction of the complex began in autumn 2016; the trial operation started in April 2018. An automatic pallet racking system storehouse for 19,000 pallets constitutes the heart of the logistics centre, being connected with the brewery’s production area by a unique technological bridge for a two-way transport of pallets with finished products and returnable packaging. Inside the bridge, carriages with packaged beer (bottles and cans) travel on a suspensory monorail track directly from the bottle filling rooms, while pallets with empty packaging travel in the opposite direction to the production lines in the production area. The pallet racking systems then place the pallets onto 34-meter high shelves. Following an order by a customer, the pallets are subsequently transported directly to the docks where they are loaded onto trucks. The transport of the pallets from the production facility to the loading area practically takes place without the human touch. The symbolic ribbon-cutting ceremony was undertaken by the Minister of Agriculture Miroslav Toman, CSc., the Mayor of České Budějovice Jiří Svoboda and Budweiser Budvar’s Managing Director Petr Dvořák.

“Our country provided the world with quality beer. It is good that we still are at the forefront of world brewing despite all the historical and social changes that we have gone through. Budweiser Budvar has also played a big role in it, as it has been using Czech ingredients in brewing, thus increasing the value of them, and has been adhering to traditional practices. The beer from České Budějovice is exported to 76 countries. Last year Budweiser Budvar confirmed its position of the second largest exporter of Czech beer,” says the Minister of Agriculture Miroslav Toman.

“The beer from Budweiser Budvar has greatly helped promote the good reputation of our town in the world. Naturally, I am very pleased to see that the brewery has been developing successfully. I would like to wish many more successes in the future,” adds the Mayor of České Budějovice Jiří Svoboda.

“One of the important stages of our corporation’s development plan has just been completed. We have doubled the storage capacity and increased our truck loading performance by 60%. But above all, we have cleared the area in the brewery's production premises where a new bottling room and other buildings will be constructed in the near future,”explains Budweiser Budvar’s Managing Director Petr Dvořák. The logistics complex constitutes an important stage in the development plan of the brewery, which started being implemented in 2015. Within this plan, a new section of the lager cellar will be put into operation this autumn, followed by other buildings: a building for a third bottle-filling room, a new section of the fermentation room and a new brewing room. After the completion of the planned investment totalling around CZK 2,000 million the annual production of the brewery will increase by a quarter to 2 million hectolitres.  

In connection with the logistics centre, the general public can already appreciate the fact that all internal brewery transport has been moved to a newly built road bridge, thus relieving the traffic in Kněžskodvorská Street. 70 parking spaces for the brewery staff are also part of the brewery, which has improved parking for the public in the immediate vicinity. “I would like to thank all the suppliers and colleagues from the brewery who participated in the preparation and implementation of the project,” concludes Budweiser Budvar’s Managing Director Petr Dvořák.

The value of the investment in the logistics centre amounted to CZK 750 million. The planned return on the investment is six years. SSI Schäfer was the general supplier of the solution, while ICZ, a.s. was the system integrator and supplier of the information system. The companies of Porr a.s. and Edikt a.s participated in building according to the project by EIS CZ s.r.o. atelier.

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