In its beverage can growth segment traditional brewery Estrella Galicia recently procured not one but two clever Nature MultiPack systems from KHS. In doing so, the company has gone for innovative technology and a reliable partner – not for the first time and certainly not for the last!
The special beers crafted under the name of “fabrica de cerveza” are just one of many examples for the Spanish company’s claim to premium quality.
Thanks to an upward trend that’s way above the average for the rest of the country, the company is clearly on course for success – and sees considerable potential for growth in the future, too. After all, for a few years now the amount of beer consumed in Spain has steadily increased.
Accordingly, its plans are no less than ambitious: as the existing Agrela production site in A Coruña is at the limits of its capacity with nine filling lines, the brewery is currently investing in a new plant ten kilometers away from the present location. An area covering a total of 500,000 square meters will soon be available that will provide plenty of room for further expansion. One of the key technology suppliers to Hijos de Rivera is Dortmund engineering company KHS. To date, the machine and systems manufacturer from Germany has delivered no fewer than five lines for glass, beverage cans and kegs to A Coruña. One of the most recent joint projects is a turnkey canning line, for example, with a capacity of up to 72,000 containers per hour. The system has two packaging machines. One of these is an Innopack Kisters Nature MultiPacker for the high-capacity range, on which beverage containers are turned into packs of four or six using easy-to-remove dots of adhesive without the need for any film or cardboard. The other is an Innopack Kisters TSPP that has a paper-wrapping module that packs 12 to 24 containers in perfectly folded and glued paper instead of in shrink film. The purpose of both packers is to provide optimised systems that consume as little material as possible and at the same time significantly reduce the packaging’s carbon footprint. In parallel, an existing KHS canning line with a maximum output of 60,000 containers per hour was also expanded to include an Innopack Kisters Nature MultiPacker.
Unique packaging system
Under the motto of ‘the best packaging is the one that isn’t there’, the Estrella Galicia six-pack is sold as a NoPack. Thanks to advertising in the form of eye-catching videos chiefly posted on social media channels that showed consumers how to handle the packs, the new system has been outstandingly well received on the market. According to the company, consumers are specifically asking for the NoPack which for them is both an attractive and environmentally- and climate-friendly variant and success can be gaged not just through our high media presence but also by looking at the sales figures: since the launch Estrella Galicia’s market share has clearly increased.
Consistent branding
The generally high brand awareness of Estrella Galicia is the result of widespread sponsoring measures that the company consistently implements in many different areas. Pledged to provide premium quality, the brewery isn’t satisfied with simply investing in high-profile advertising but also wants to set a good example. Besides using secondary packaging such as Nature MultiPack or the KHS PaperWrapper, Estella Galicia is thus increasingly opting for the beverage can as its primary packaging of choice.
