Dr. Stefan Lustig, Chief Technology Officer of Paulaner Brauerei Gruppe, one of the largest German brewery groups, has unexpectedly left the company. The company issued today a press release saying that Lustig did “not renew his managing contract in agreement with the shareholders.”
The statement goes on: “Dr. Stefan Lustig has led the Paulaner Brewery in the area of technology and logistics through a phase of upheaval. He co-designed the new brewery in Munich's Langwied district and was responsible for the new building project.”
What sounds like a special appreciation could also be a dig at Lustig. The new brewing site never performed like planned and caused the group a lot of problems.
After the brewing operations of Paulaner were relocated from the traditional 375 year old Nockherberg site on the high banks of the Isar river to an industrial location in Langwied on the outskirts of Munich in September 2015, the brewery was not able to satisfy all demand for its beers and lost about 100,000 hl of sales (-4.3%) in 2016. Instead of a planned reduction of 90 people, Paulaner had even to add additional staff.
People familiar with the issue claim at least part of the problems with Heineken, which used to have a 49.9% share in Paulaner’s parent company Brau Holding International (BHI). After the mentioned series of mishaps BHI was dissolved last year byjoining all companies of the former BHI under the roof of the newly formed Paulaner Brewery Group, thus diluting Heineken’s share in Paulaner to 30% with the rest belonging to the Schoerghuber family. (inside.beer, 10.02.2017). The new Paulaner Brewery Group is also headquartered in Munich and combines the brands Paulaner, Hacker-Pschorr, Fürstenberg, Auerbräu, Hopf, Schmucker, Hoepfner, Thurn und Taxis as well as the majority of Kulmbacher Brauerei.
Lustig’s role as CTO will be taken over by Dr. Jörg Lehmann, who had been responsible since April 2013 for the technical division at the Management Board of Kulmbacher Brauerei, which is majority owned by the Paulaner Brauerei Group. Lehmann is not new to Munich. Before going to Kulmbach he had been seven years plant manager at AB InBev’s Munich brewery Spaten-Franziskaner-Bräu, one of the fiercest rivals of Paulaner in the local market and nationwide with its Franziskaner wheat beer. Since summer 2017, he is also the President of the German Brewers Association, the highest representative of the brewing industry in Germany. (inside.beer, 30.6.2017)
