Heineken Vietnam opens Southeast Asia’s largest and fastest brewery

VIETNAM – Heineken Vietnam has inaugurated its largest brewery in Ba Ria Vung Tau, which has become the region’s largest after multiple expansions over the last five years.

Covering an area of 40 hectares in My Xuan A Industrial Zone, Phu My – Ba Ria Vung Tau, was acquired by Heineken in 2017 and increased its capacity 36 times over the last five years, boasts of an annual capacity of 11 million hectoliters.

To a large extent, the Vung Tau brewery has automated operations in the beer-making process from raw material delivery, brewing, and filtration to delivery for packing: ‘making it the most productive Heineken brewery in the world.

Its packaging area only needs 5 technicians for each of the two lines with speeds up to 130,000 cans/hour.

With a total of 4 canning lines, Vung Tau factory can produce 12 million cans of beer a day, the fastest canning line of all Heineken breweries worldwide.

The brewery is also considered the innovation hub for Heineken Vietnam. Since 2015, it has introduced seven new products to the Vietnamese market: including Strongbow cider, Tiger Platinum, Edelweiss, and Heineken 0.0.

Out of 40 hectares that the brewery covers, over 10 hectares (27%) have been planned for gardens and green spaces.

The brewery benefits from natural lighting and ventilation: 615 transparent domes have been installed on top of buildings.

This solution helps to allow natural light and fresh air into the brewery and help reduce total energy consumption.

Since Heineken acquired the site in 2015, the brewery has cut energy consumption by almost half (48%) on a per-hectoliter basis.

Currently, 97% of the demand for thermal energy comes from a biomass plant just across the street in My Xuan Industrial Zone.

In line with Heineken Vietnam’s 2025 Sustainability Ambition, the brewery has a plan for renewable electricity implementation.

Vung Tau is also said to be the most water efficient of all Heineken breweries in the Asia Pacific: currently using 2.32 liters of water to make one liter of beer (including the water going into the beer).

After the brewing process, wastewater at Vung Tau brewery is treated to grade A standard, and 8% of the water is reclaimed and used for cleaning purposes.

In addition, the brewery is waste-free from landfills, which means all by-products/waste products are reused, recycled, or turned into higher-value products.

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