Dreher Invests to Improve Manufacturing Capacity

Dreher Breweries has increased its aluminum can production capacity by 120% with an investment of HUF 7 billion, Gábor Békefi, CEO of the company, told MTI.

He added that the production capacity of the Kőbánya plant has increased from 50,000 cans per hour to 110,000, making Dreher a potential exporter within the Asahi Group, in addition to meeting domestic demand. He noted that in the domestic retail market, the proportion of aluminum cans accounts for 82% of retail sales, and the popularity of flavored and non-alcoholic flavored products is growing steadily, so the company has a significant competitive advantage in not having to import this type of packaging.

The new production hall and modern laboratory, together with the installation of a state-of-the-art production line, will also bring the company closer to its sustainability goals of making Dreher's production processes carbon neutral by 2030. The investment, which has now been completed, is expected to result in less specific energy consumption and the CEO highlighted that the new line will also be able to handle packaging raw material from renewable sources and produce pure carton packs, known as multipacks, completely eliminating plastic packaging.

The development was financed from its own resources.

Following the change of ownership in 2017, when Dreher Breweries became part of the Asahi Group, the company multiplied its production investments. Prior to the now-completed HUF 7 billion investment, since 2019, HUF 1.1 billion has been spent on replacing compressors, HUF 1.6 billion on the domestic production of flavored products and HUF 1.9 billion on filter replacement.