Together with Krones, the privately owned Grupo Petropolis has now built two new breweries with a capacity of six million hectolitres each. The first of the two production facilities had already gone into operation during late 2013, in Alagoinhas near Salvador de Bahia, following around one year of construction work, right on time for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. The second facility, in Itapisuma near Recife in the state of Pernambuco, is scheduled to start up in mid-2014. This represents massive expansion for the group into the north of Brazil.
Both brewing facilities are identical in construction and dimensioning. Krones won the turnkey order for the two breweries, starting with the brewhouse, the cellarage, and the filtration system, all the way through to the filling lines, where each facility has a 62,000-bph returnable-glass line and a 128,000-cph canning line, as well as building 18 combined fermentation and storage tanks and 12 bright-beer tanks for each brewery on site.
The process sections of the two new facilities (Alagoinhas and Itapisuma) have been designed to incorporate the very latest advances from Krones in terms of beer production technology. These include the Variomill wet mill, which provides improved filterability, the ShakesBeer mash copper, which assures enhanced taste stability, the Pegasus C lautering system, an intelligent solution for filtering beer wort to ensure high quality levels with low solids contents, and the Stromboli wort boiling system, which consumes up to 40 per cent less energy. The cold section, for example, features the TFS Twin Flow system for filtration, using long filtration cycles for superlative beer stability, plus Evoguard valve technology for hygienic process applications.
Each brewery features a returnable-glass line rated at 62,000 bottles an hour. Highlights include the Lavatec bottle washer from the latest generation with a low consumption of water and chemicals, plus the modularised Solomodule labeller, which can handle several different labelling modes. Each of the two breweries also possesses a canning line rated at 128,000 cans per hour: Krones’ fastest canning lines featuring just a single volumetric filler. In the packaging zone, Robobox layer preparation units are integrated for creating layer formations to high standards of flexible accuracy. In all the lines, a SHIELD tunnel pasteuriser ensures maximised standards of product quality, coupled with low water consumption.
With these two new brewing facilities, Grupo Petrópolis is causing quite a stir on Brazil’s beer market.
