During an official presentation of the project on Monday, representatives of the Mexican state of Chihuahua and Heineken announced the construction of a new canning plant near the Heineken beer gigafactory in Mequoi, Mexico. The investment is worth MXN 1.8 billion (USD 88 million) and will create 150 direct jobs during the construction and 120 after opening. Construction will start in about half a year operations will start at the end of 2024.
"This plant marks a change in the integration of our supply chain. The production of our canned presentations will continue to grow and, to meet this estimated growth, we need this type of investment," said Mónica Bichara, legal and corporate affairs vice president of Heineken Mexico. Currently, about 36% of all beers sold in Mexico are in cans, 40% in non-returnable bottles and 24% in returnable bottles according to data from the National Chamber of the Beer and Malt Industry (Cerveceros de México).
Heineken’s Meoqui plant, the largest greenfield brewery in its history with 6 million hectoliters, was inaugurated in 2018, with an investment of USD 500 million (inside.beer, 27.02.2018). President and CEO of Cuahutémoc Moctezuma (Heineken Mexico) at that time was Dolf van den Brink who succeeded two years later Jean-François van Boxmeer as Chairman of the Executive Board and CEO of Heineken. (inside.beer, 11.2.2020)
As part of the integration of the value chain, Heineken also helped its glass and malt suppliers to locate close to the new space.
Crown Holdings through its subsidiary Crown Vichisa S.A. invested USD 120 million in a new bottle production for Heineken in Chihuahua that started production together with Heineken in February 2018.
Malteurop, one of the world’s leading malting companies, laid the foundation for their new 120,000 ton malt house in Meocqui on 11 March 2022. 100% of the barley will be produced locally by Mexican farmers within a radius of 200 kilometers from the factory. According to the original plans, production is scheduled to start in 2023.
