Skol’s brewery on the outskirts of Rwanda’s capital Kigali has only been operating
since 2010. But the purely malt-based beer brewed there is being gratifyingly well received
by consumers. So when the existing bottling line had come up against the limits of its
26 · BBII 6/2020
RAPID SUCCESS
New bottling line for Skol
capacity in 2017, it was time for a new one.
Even today, it’s SBL’s principal
brand, accounting for around
60 percent of total sales. And the
second product that the brewery
produced right from the start –
Gutanu, a beer made from malt
and rice – has also caught on,
and nowadays represents a third
of total output. In subsequent years,
these were joined by alcohol-free,
premium and specialty beers with
a higher alcohol content. By 2018,
Skol had thus succeeded in increasing
its share of Rwanda’s beer
market to 27 percent.
Up against
the capacity limits
At first, Skol had dimensioned its
fermentation and storage capacities
rather cautiously, at 100,000
Skol is one of the world’s biggest
beer brands and is produced
and sold by various brewing conglomerates.
In some countries of
Africa, the Belgian family firm Unibra
owns the brewing and marketing
rights. When the demand for
beer in Rwanda rose a few years
ago, Unibra decided in 2010 to
produce the purely malt-based
beer locally too – and built a new
brewing facility for the purpose:
Skol Brewery Ltd. (SBL). And the
decision itself, as well as the
choice of what until then was an
unknown type of beer in this country,
turned out to be absolutely
right: Skol Malt, the first beer ever
on the Rwandan market to be
brewed solely with malt, was a big
hit, “although back then not a soul
in Rwanda was familiar with the
Skol brand,” explains Eustache
Mpiko, Engineering Manager at
SBL.
In order to meet the continuously rising demand, SBL invested in a second
returnable glass line, rated at 25,000 bottles per hour. For this purpose, a new hall
was built as a greenfield project.