Craft beers are flourishing in the US. The Brewers Association’s 2013 sales data showed an 18% rise in volume, representing a total of 15.6 million barrels, and a 20% increase in retail dollar value. Moreover, craft brewers reached 7.8% volume of the total U.S. beer market, up from 6.5% the previous year.
And craft beer’s dollar share of the total US beer market reached 14.3% in 2013, when its dollar value reached US$14.3 billion, up from US$11.9 billion in 2012.
This is good news for Pearson Packaging Systems in Washington State. The specialist in custom secondary packaging solutions recently installed a bottle packaging line for the USA's Fort Collins Brewery. Its Box Shop solution includes a basket erector, multi-packer and case erector.
The Fort Collins Brewery produces a full line of hand-crafted beers, including year round brews and specialty beers. And like the US craft beer category as a whole, its sales are in a growth phase. To keep up with demand, the brewery recently upgraded its facility with a range of machinery, including Pearson Packaging equipment.
Pearson Packaging supplied a BE60 basket erector that can erect four, six and eight pack baskets at a speed of up to 60 per minute. The flat baskets are selected from a magazine, opened and locked into place. The baskets are then passed to the Pearson MP35 Adjustable Multipacker, that loads the baskets into the empty regular slotted cases (RSCs) at speeds of up to 30 cases per minute. The MP35 can be configured for either in-line or cross-flow feed of baskets into cases.
Pearson Packaging is represented in Oceania by HBM Packaging Technologies.
