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BRASSERIE CASTELAIN concocts its beer from the Nord département with social and environmental values

4. Environment

Biodiversity and sustainable resource management

Context

Located in Bénifontaine, Brasserie Castelain is a traditional 100% family brewery, managed by Annick Castelain. The hallmark of the brewery is “the love for the craft, the art of brewing” by combining tradition and innovative production. Committed very early to Sustainable Development, the brewery broke new ground by creating in 1986 “La Jade”, the 1st organic beer in France. It resolutely continues on this course by maintaining its manufacturing method and its traditional expertise with quality products, while modernising its production facilities to reduce its energy consumption and ensure the sustainability of the company.

Objectives

  • Develop the employees’ skills while preserving traditions and integrating new technologies.
  • Reduce the water and energy consumption that is needed for the production.

APPROACH

Brasserie Castelain is an independent family company. There are few hierarchical levels, which encourages proximity management and easy communication between the departments and the management.

One important point in participatory management: each department participates in the development of the criteria that make up the profit-sharing contract, related to attendance time and not remuneration. For instance: any person working 1,500 hours/year, regardless of their remuneration, will have the same profit sharing. The profit-sharing indicators have been co-built with the employees.

Brasserie Castelain is the first brewery to produce, as of 1986, an organic beer in France. The “Jade” organic beer is made from hops and barley malts from organic farming. This beer is certified by ECOCERT. Despite a rough start on the market, “Jade” now represents 10% of the production in volume. In 2013, a new organic beer –“Jade ambrée”– has been created, and in May 2014, the brewery launches a new organic beer: the pomegranate-flavoured “Jade”.

Water management, selective sorting, waste traceability and energy saving. In 2009, Brasserie Castelain has invested one million euros to acquire a set of equipment to develop, for instance, the recovery and washing of glass bottles.

In 2013, the company has invested in a new brewhouse while maintaining the traditional manufacturing process by infusion. This new brewhouse offers greater stability and control of the manufacturing process, and improves the working conditions. The old brewhouse was very pleasant but inconvenient in terms of ergonomics. Many manual operations were to be done there (manual cleaning of the bottom of the tank for solids, e.g. spent grains1…). In the new brewhouse, these operations are automated.

Internal computer and Excel training has been provided to operators in order to accompany the implementation of packaging automation and the new brewhouse.

CONTRIBUTION TO COMPANY PERFORMANCE

  • Sustainability of the company : +6% of sales (2012/2013)
  • Control of the process: regularity, quality, reliability, and Gold and Silver medals obtained
  • Development of the recipe potential: 3 organic beers

Benefits

  • Water: 35% savings between 2009 and 2014
  • Proximity and constructive dialogue with the employees
  • Senior/junior skills transfer, and improvement in the working conditions
Workforce
29 salariés
Turnover
7,7 millions d’euros (2013)
Country
France

BRASSERIE CASTELAIN

13 rue Pasteur
62410 BENIFONTAINE

www.chti.com

Contact

03 21 08 68 68 This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Mise à jour le 13/11/2017

Creative Commons Attribution This work by Réseau Alliances – World Forum Lille is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.