Heineken’s largest brewery in Vietnam may heighten demand for aluminium cans

Heineken has successfully opened the doors to its biggest brewery in Vietnam, with a collective area of 40 hectares in My Xuan A Industrial Zone, situated in Ba Ria Vung Tau province. The unit flaunts a net capacity of 11 million hectolitres with four enhanced beverage canning lines.

The Heineken Vietnam Vung Tau Brewery can be deemed the largest brewery in the whole of South East Asia.

In the Packaging zone of the facility, every two beverage canning lines, each maintained by only five technicians, can hourly pressure fill 130,000 cans.

The four extremely durable high-speed canning lines in the Vung Tau brewery can, on the whole, fill 12 million aluminium cans each day. This is the fastest technology mastered by the company in its Vung Tau unit, which cannot be found in any other Heineken brewery worldwide.

This optimisation of the brewery will heavily increase the demand for aluminium cans in the South Eastern Zone. Moreover, the Government of Vietnam is heavily promoting the use of aluminium cans in the country. In January 2021, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MoNRE) and Ball Corporation joined hands to promote the use and recycling of beverage cans in Vietnam.

Aluminum is primarily used in food packaging due to its rigid resistance to rust and corrosion. Food or beverages that are sensitive to light can be protected more reliably and for a longer time using aluminum cans. 

Heineken Vietnam had lawfully earned ownership of the brewery in 2017, recording continuous growth from that period. The capacity of the unit alone has grown by 36 times in the past five years, which has made this Vietnamese brewery a modernised version of its past.

Addressing the crowd at the Grand Opening, The CEO of Heineken, Mr Dolf van den Brink, exemplified: “On behalf of Heineken, I’d like to share how incredibly proud we are of the many teams and colleagues working on the Vung Tau 11 million hectolitre expansion and how deeply we thank all the authorities, suppliers, business partners and customers who stood shoulder to shoulder with us to bring it to life. The level of passion, the level of resilience, and the winning spirit are all unique to Vietnam.”

The Vung Tau Heineken brewery, on a huge scale, has automated all its daily activities in the beer-making process, like the delivery of raw material, filtration to commercial packaging and brewing. This has anointed it as the most productive Heineken brewery on a global scale.

The brewery has also opened new avenues allowing more innovation for Heineken making the Vietnamese joint the most productive among all the company’s breweries. Vung Tau brewery has also revolutionised the beverage market in Vietnam with seven new products in Heineken’s portfolio, called Heineken 0.0, Strongbow cider, Edelweiss and Tiger Platinum.