Australian breweries have collectively secured more than $ 5 million in grants from the Manufacturing Modernization Fund, which was announced today.

Capital city, Curve and Blasta, with Brick path, Ballistic beer, Moon dog and Seven Mile Brewing received $ 5.1 million of the $ 52.8 million of the MMF’s second round of funding.

In Associated Industries, East Coast Canning was on the list, as was Bickfords, owners of Vale Brewing, which received a $ 1 million grant, although it is not clear whether the line project The company’s bottling will be aimed specifically at its brewing business.

They alone have received $ 7.1 million in co-financing grants, and brewers and associated industries are spending $ 37.6 million on their projects in total.

The funding was launched as part of the Budget 2020 Modern Manufacturing Strategy, and aims to “support transformative investments in technologies and manufacturing processes”.

The first round of last year saw Little Bang and Brisbane’s Ballistic Beer receiving grants, and in a surprise gesture, 4 Pines, owned by CUB, also received $ 700,000 for a round table project, which was intended small and medium-sized businesses.

Among this series of grant recipients, Blasta Brewing Co. of WA received a large-scale co-financing grant of $ 900,079.

“We were absolutely delighted when we found out we had been successful,” said Steve Russell, Founder of Blasta Brewing.

“This was a competitive national grant with a large number of applications – over 250 I believe – so we were very happy and grateful that our project was selected on its merits.”

This will help award-winning Blasta finance a massive expansion and relocation of its existing brewery.

The WA brewery, which was founded in 2018, will move its brewing activities to a new 4,100 m² production facility near Belmont.

“Blasta has grown rapidly since we started three years ago. We have increased the brewing capacity three times and have since exceeded that capacity and have been at maximum for some time.

“Our long-term goals are to be recognized for our quality and our products, further developing our business nationally and internationally, where customers seek them. We aim to do this by developing a sustainable and environmentally focused business and we will achieve this by having a local presence in these markets to achieve these goals as we grow, ”said Russell.

“We have been planning an expansion since the middle of last year and when we saw the opportunity for the Federal Modern Manufacturing initiative, we submitted a bid for our project.”

Blasta will acquire an advanced 4-vessel, 50hL brewhouse and Krones integrated packaging line that will be designed to enable the implementation of IoT technology and collaborative robots to facilitate the packaging process, which according to Blasta, will allow staff to focus on quality developing new beers.

Dubbed the “Blasta Advanced Manufacturing 4.0” project, it will initially cost $ 3.6 million and create around 50 jobs in brewing, sales, marketing, logistics and support services.

The new brewery will allow Blasta to produce 5 million liters of beer per year, then 10 million when fully operational.

“We expect the new brewery to be operational by the end of the first quarter of 2022,” explained Russell.

“We will use cutting-edge innovation to create a holistic, cutting-edge integrated solution that allows us to be competitive, lean and efficient in our industry.

“The full scope includes automation of manufacturing on the hot side of the brewery, finishing on the cold side and integrated packaging.

The larger project will involve the development of cutting-edge technologies to help Blasta’s environmental benchmarks, such as CO2 recovery systems, energy-saving brewery features, energy storage and recycling, and use. of electric vehicles.

“We firmly believe that despite automating parts of the production process, we will always have a hands-on, hands-on approach to key phases of the production process to ensure that we deliver exactly the product features we desire,” said Russell.

Along with Blasta, Ballistic will receive $ 122,294 for a prepackage and stability upgrade, Modus Operandi Brewing will receive $ 1 million for the brewing and sale of Nort, its alcohol-free brand launched last year, and Moon Dog received just over $ 350,000 to develop postmix alcoholic seltzer brands.

Brick Lane will receive $ 1 million, Seven Mile Brewing has secured $ 125,000 for production upgrades, and Capital Brewing will receive $ 946,959 in co-financing, to help with a $ 3.8 million facility upgrade.

Canberra Brewery and Manuka Oval casting partnership partner Bentspoke will receive $ 671,000 for a $ 2.7 million upgrade that will allow the brewery to double its capacity.

“The MMF grant will allow BentSpoke to significantly expand its production facility, increasing its capacity to 6 million liters,” said BentSpoke founder Richard Watkins.

“The expansion of the cellar and the modernization of the packaging line are the main areas of intervention. Quality and innovation are at the heart of everything we brew and these areas will also be improved depending on the rest of the project.

Jonathan Ward, CEO of BentSpoke, said tThe application process was, as might be expected, difficult.

“It’s a full application process. We have spent a lot of time adapting our business case to the grant requirements and although this has been announced we are only in the process of finalizing the grant now, there are a bunch of conditions, ” Ward said. Brews News.

“This project resonated very strongly with some of the government’s manufacturing priorities, one of which is obviously food and beverage, and reading these manufacturing priorities allowed us to align our projects with those priorities.”

He said the grants are a testament to the growing desire by all levels of government to support the brewing industry.

“We saw in the last budget the support for excise and reimbursement changes for small breweries and distilleries, and thanks to the work of the IBA and the industry, we see the recognition of the contribution of small breweries to local and regional economies, and that’s been reflected in that support, ”Ward said.