Posted yesterday at 8:00 a.m.
PHOTO MARTIN CHAMBERLAND, THE PRESS
Fred Landtmeters, boss of Molson Coors Canada, and Tim Crease, general manager of the Longueuil brewery
PHOTO MARTIN CHAMBERLAND, THE PRESS
The brewery is divided into three sections: brewing, bottling and distribution. Valérie Fraser, master brewer at the Longueuil plant since September 2020, looks out the porthole of the brewing tank where all the ingredients are stirred and brought to a boil. A quarter of the factory staff is female. In Longueuil, the first brew was produced in August 2021. A beer like Molson Export takes six hours to produce.
PHOTO MARTIN CHAMBERLAND, THE PRESS
The Longueuil plant brews beers mainly for the Quebec market. But it also has a national mandate for specialty products like Mad Jack and Blue Moon beers. The brewery has 36 stainless steel fermentation tanks with a capacity of 9 million liters and 16 maturation tanks with a capacity of 2 million liters.
PHOTO MARTIN CHAMBERLAND, THE PRESS
Brewing operations are tracked by the control center to ensure the quality and consistency of the drink.
PHOTO MARTIN CHAMBERLAND, THE PRESS
The bottling machine runs at 1000 bottles per minute. Highly automated, the bottling and packaging operations require the services of a maximum of only 15 workers per shift for three production lines: one for the bottle, one for the can and the last for the beer on tap. .
PHOTO MARTIN CHAMBERLAND, THE PRESS
One of the novelties of the plant compared to that of Old Montreal is the presence of an automatic packing machine of German manufacture which crates the bottles while limiting human intervention to a minimum.
PHOTO MARTIN CHAMBERLAND, THE PRESS
The new brewery has 420 workers, divided half and half between production and distribution.
PHOTO MARTIN CHAMBERLAND, THE PRESS
The Senior Director of Distribution for the Quebec market, Maxime Couture. The warehouse is now integrated into the brewery. The distribution center on Dickson Street in Montreal will close in the coming weeks.
PHOTO MARTIN CHAMBERLAND, THE PRESS
The order preparation center in Greater Montreal, fully robotized like at Amazon. An entire pallet made up of a single product enters the enclosure to be “depalletized” according to customer needs. A range of mismatched products emerges from the enclosure according to each order.
PHOTO MARTIN CHAMBERLAND, THE PRESS
Forklifts load orders through one of 20 shipping loading docks. Seven additional doors can receive deliveries.