The new owner of the brewery Ledenica in Mezdra Grisha Ganchev (through his company Litex Commerce) opened last week a completely modernized factory. Production is recovering after a three-year break and this happened in the year that marks the 50th anniversary of the founding of the brewery, since it is a descendent of the distillery of Vratsa entrepreneur, industrialist and politician of the last century – Todor Balabanov.
To acquire its present form, Grisha Ganchev has invested 25 million levs in the company that was bankrupt three years ago, said Vladislav Tsvetkov manager of the company Ledenica 1964, which will operate the brewery. These funds are invested for rehabilitation and modernization of production, and new presentations of products.
Once famous beer is now produced by an innovative technology – the so-called mash filter, first introduced in Bulgaria from Belgium.This not only ensures high quality of the beer, but also enables production to be substantially increased. Modernized factory has a new heating system. The production processes are computerized, and the recipe for beer is classified. The process line that permits the filling of 15, 000 bottles per hour, and working with less losses of materials is totally renewed. A new technology is being used to line plastic packages of two litres. It will produce 8,000 bottles per hour.
The capacity of the plant is now 400,000 hectoliters of beer per year. Soon the second phase of repair wiil be completed and then the capacity will increase to 800,000 liters. The owners intend to launch the production of the new brand „Varna“.
The entire production cycle is completely closed. Everything – from filling of the bottles to their packaging in a pallet is automated, with minimal amount of human activity. At this stage the brewing factory will employ 110 people. The total number of hired employees in the company comes to 150 people, but this number is expected to rise with the increasing of production. Original intentions of Ganchev were to open about 300 jobs.
Before Ganchev’s company Litex Commerce bought the abandoned and bankrupt factory, it was owned by the late Michael Mihov.
Because it had accumulated huge debts (over nine million) several financial institutions seized its property two years ago, First Investment Bank, to which the obligations of the previous owner were the largest, became its majority owner, having bought the debt of two other banks as well. In the summer of last year it resold it to Ganchev for nearly 13 million levs. Then he said he planned to invest 10 million levs in the factory, but obviously the condition forced him to increase funding 2.5 times.
The BANKER
