Top Russian brewer Baltika plans to launch water purification facilities at its Khabarovsk brewery in Russia’s Far East, early February, the company’s press service said Monday. The company has been building the facilities for 19 months, the press service said adding that the equipment was supplied by Germany’s Enviro Chemie. The project is being implemented within Baltika’s environmental program, the press service added.

The company’s brewery in Khabarovsk was launched on April 11, 2003. Its annual capacity amounts to 1 million hectolitres of beer. Baltika is the leading producer of canned beer in Russia and accounts for 50% of its market. Besides the Khabarovsk brewery, Baltika has five breweries, including Baltika in St. Petersburg, Baltika Don in Rostov-on-Don, Tula Brewery in Tula and a new brewery in Samara. In 2003, Baltika sold 16.17 million hectolitres of beer in 2003, up 0.7% versus 16.06 million hectolitres in 2002.
In 2003, the company increased its sales both in Russia and abroad, to 15.17 million hl and 1 million hl, respectively.

Last year, Baltika built two breweries, in Samara and Khabarovsk. Simultaneously, production facilities were upgraded and expanded in St. Petersburg, Rostov-on-Don and Tula, enabling the company to create a geographically-distributed production system. In the first half of 2004, Baltika plans to complete the restructuring of the Russian distribution system launched in 2003. Baltika accounts for 18% of beer output in Russia, and is expected to raise this figure to 25% at year-end 2003. The company is a subsidiary of Baltic Beverage Holding, which owns 75% in the company.

Top Russian brewer Baltika plans to build a storage facility worth U.S. $3.4 million in the city of Irkutsk by August, an official with the company’s press service told Prime-Tass Monday. The storage facility with a capacity of 20,000 hectolitres of beer will be built using the most up-to-date technologies, the official said.

27 January, 2004