Brewery adds new tunnel pasteurizer to its glass bottling line |25 September 2017

Local brewery company Seychelles Breweries Ltd (SBL) is continuously improving the quality of all its products by investing in new technologies, the recent being a state-of-the-art tunnel pasteurizer within its glass bottling line.

The line includes products packaged in returnable glass bottles like the Seybrew and EKU beers, Guinness, Smirnoff Ice and ginger ale and tonic.

The tunnel pasteurizer has a very sophisticated PLC control system and has been designed to have a low consumption of energy and water.

It was officially opened last Thursday by Simon Harvey, chairman of SBL board, and managing director Nicholas Cook in the presence of staff members and the Plaisance parish priest who blessed the equipment.

The tunnel is a R40 million investment and has been supplied by Krones of Germany, one of the leading suppliers of beer and beverage equipment globally.

It gives very gentle heat treatment which enables the beer to retain consistent quality throughout its shelf live.

Mr Cook described the day as a signifcant one for the company and another milestone in the investment of the factory.

“It’s very gentle, it’s very sophisticated, it gives you good fresh beer all the way through with great taste from the start to the end of its shelf life. Its pasteurisation which is a very gentle heat treatment, is controlled very, very carefully to make it very gentle so it has no impact on the flavour,” said Martin Cecil, supply chain director at SBL.

“The tunnel pasteurizer is all about guaranteeing quality and consistency of our beer. Making sure we are able to deliver that every single time. It’s part of our continued investment in our plant. We had a new fridge plant, a new broiler plant and now we have a new tunnel pasteurizer. We’ll have more money going into our brew house soon. And our plan is to invest another R300 million over the next five years,” said Mr Cook.

In response to how the local beer will fare against imported ones, Mr Cook said:

“Fresh beer is best beer. We are the only people who can produce beer on the island and you can drink that beer within seven days after being made,” he said, adding all these investments are to make sure SBL delivers the highest quality of beer, as fresh as it possibly can.

Mr Cook mentioned the few places in the world where you can drink beer which is produced on a Monday and can be drunk on a Tuesday or Wednesday.

M. Julie