Carlsberg has moved its 2.5 million hectolitres production from Valby to Fredericia. ALECTIA has assisted with the complicated and demanding task in several ways.

Turning the 28-year old brewery in Fredericia, Denmark into an international state-of-the-art facility is an exciting challenge. On top of that Carlsberg closed down the 160-year old brewery in Valby, Denmark and moved the entire production of 2.5 million hectolitres to Fredericia.

Europe’s leading brewery in Fredericia
Carlsberg contacted ALECTIA in the summer of 2006 in order to use our expertise in the planning of this major operation. ALECTIA was in charge of the technical clarification and preparation and tendering for contract negotiation with suppliers. Carlsberg’s goal with refurbishing the brewery in Fredericia was to concentrate the majority of the production in one place and modernize the facilities, thereby making it one of the leading breweries in Europe. Carlsberg’s move can be seen as part of a global consolidation trend in breweries which aim to optimize production by joining facilities and moving production out of the city centres.

Solving the puzzle
Part of the challenge in moving such a large scale production is maintaining the production at both sites while dismantling and relocating the equipment. This requires forward thinking and planning the moving of beer tanks in seasons of low production according to consumer demand.

“The transition needs to be smooth. So you need to be acutely aware of the production requirements for the brewery in question. You can’t just shut down a massive production like this one in order to move it”, says Hans Christian Aller, Business Process Manager at ALECTIA.

ALECTIA made a thorough analysis of the project and advised Carlsberg on the best way to move the tanks in stages.

“Furthermore, some of the production facilities in Fredericia are different from the ones in Valby. This means that you can’t just move production, you need to prepare the facilities. One example is the Semper Ardens beer which is only brewed in Valby. Here flavour matching is needed to ensure the quality once the product is brewed in Fredericia”, says Hans Christian Aller.

A brewery of the future
The brewery in Fredericia obviously needed to go through major refurbishment. Among the installations that were moved from Valby were the fermenting tanks, the bright beer tanks and the gas matrix. The brewhouse was also expanded.

After the production was moved to Fredericia and the brewery in Valby was closed down, ALECTIA carried out a series of performance tests to ensure that the equipment performed at optimal level and that quality requirements were met.