Over for traditional companies: Binding brewery in Frankfurt closes | hessenschau.de
Because of high losses, the Radeberger Group wants to close the traditional Binding brewery in Frankfurt. By October 2023, production at the site in the Sachsenhausen district is to be completely relocated.
Germany’s largest private brewery group is closing its production and bottling plant in Frankfurt due to drastically increased costs.
“The Radeberger Group will cease production and bottling at its Frankfurt location, i.e. the Binding brewery, by the beginning of October 2023 and will uniformly relocate the brands and quantities produced and bottled there to sister locations,” said the Radeberger Group, which belongs to the Oetker Group. group on Thursday in Frankfurt.
150 employees affected
For the approximately 150 people affected, “wherever possible, socially acceptable solutions” are being sought in the talks now beginning with the employee representatives – such as partial retirement offers or jobs at other locations of the group.
The headquarters of the Radeberger Group in Frankfurt are expressly not affected by the step, they will continue to have their headquarters on Sachsenhäuser Berg.
Those affected were informed in a letter to employees on Thursday about the expected closure of the site. In the letter that HR has received, the management assures that alternatives have been sought together with the employee representatives – but ultimately no “long-term viable” solution has emerged.
“Significant overcapacity”
The brewery group had already decided to increase the price of its beers due to the drastic rise in prices for raw materials, energy and logistics. However, this is not enough to take countermeasures in the long term, the company explained.
In the past, the “considerable overcapacity” at the Frankfurt production site could only have been utilized “with great entrepreneurial and economic efforts”.
“Against the background of the acute crises, the massive burdens that the German brewers are facing, and not least the dramatic cost explosions that we as an industry have to shoulder, this is unfortunately no longer possible for the group of companies,” explained the longer spokesman the management of the Radeberger Group, Guido Mockel, the decision that has now been made.
Out for the parent brewery
For the Radeberger Group, the step also means giving up one of its parent breweries. The company, which emerged in 1870 from a brewery based in Frankfurt’s old town, became Frankfurt’s largest beer brand over the course of the 20th century. The brewhouse built in the 1950s with the striking window front on Darmstädter Landstraße is an architectural symbol of growth.
In 1953, the food counter Oetker became the owner of Binding and grouped its beer division around the Frankfurt flagship. From the end of the 1960s, Binding bought numerous regional and national beer manufacturers and grew to become the largest brewery in Hesse.
The expansion course reached its peak in 2001, when Henninger, the largest local competitor, joined forces and thus united the city’s two largest beer brands under one corporate umbrella. The striking Henninger Tower in Frankfurt-Sachsenhausen also changed hands at the same time as the Binding Group.
Binding also takes on the sponsorship of the internationally acclaimed cycle race “Around the Henninger Turm” – but stopped this in 2008. Since then, the cycle race has not only changed the course several times, but also the name.
A similar fate befell the Binding Group just a year after the takeover of its biggest competitor. The beer conglomerate has been trading under the name Radeberger Group since 2003 – a first indication of the decreasing importance of the Binding brand.
Brands should be preserved
For the Frankfurt brewing industry, the halt to production in Sachsenhausen also means the end of two traditional lines. With Binding, Frankfurt loses its last major brewery. But at least according to the name, both “Binding” and Henninger should be preserved. As the group is involved, the products are to be manufactured and bottled at other locations in the future.
Frankfurters will not have to do without their “Römer Pils” from Binding or “Kaiser Pilsener” from Henninger in the future either. Whether you can still call them real Frankfurt beers is another question.
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