In brief: Heineken brewery carries beers on waterways

Posted on September 9, 2008 by Matthieu Desiderio

From its Zoeterwoude brewery, Heineken, the Dutch brewer will carry the beers produced in its factory and sent to Antwerp and Rotterdam via waterways. By 2009, the company expects to carry most of its production to Antwerp and Rotterdam on the river. It plans to reduce the number of trucks by around 100,000 per year.

Roads being more and more congested around Dutch and Belgium ports, Heineken needed to find a new solution not to rely only on road transport. It will then ship around 50,000 40-feet containers annually from the new inland port of Alphen aan den Rijn for exported beers. However, not all the production will be transported by waterways since Dutch clients will still be delivered by road, so is the transfer from Zoeterwoude industrial plant to the inland port.