Anheuser-Busch investing $10M in Lysander plant upgrades

Won’t add any new jobs, but will help retain the 500 current positions

LYSANDER — Anheuser-Busch InBev (NYSE: BUD) is in the midst of investing $10 million in its brewery in the town of Lysander to increase production of non-alcoholic products, primarily Teavana, and to install a new multi-packer machine.

The expenditures will not add any new jobs at the plant, but will help retain the current 500 people employed there.

“We’re investing in the current jobs and keeping them sustainable,” Bryan Sullivan, general manager of the plant, tells CNYBJ.

“It’s great the company is continuing to invest in the facility. It drives the business forward and is great for the employees as well, to have that kind of commitment to the brewery — to have the company invest so heavily in the brewery,” he says.

The new multi-packer machine, which was installed at the beginning of the year, allows the factory to efficiently produce various packages of beer — 12, 18, and 20-packs, for example

Teavana is a tea brand owned by Starbucks (NASDAQ: SBUX). Anheuser-Busch InBev and Starbucks announced a partnership last year in which the brewer would produce and package a line of craft iced-tea products for the coffee company.

Anheuser-Busch InBev’s Lysander plant started its first production run of Teavana in December, says Sullivan, who has been in his position for a little over six months.

The local plant is the only Anheuser-Busch InBev facility to produce this product.

The company’s capital investments are also funding several projects driving operational efficiencies — initiatives reducing bottle or can loss and beer loss, for example, he adds.

The Lysander investment is part of more than $500 million in capital investments Anheuser-Busch InBev said it is making in 2017 in its U.S. breweries, distribution centers, and packaging and innovation projects, according to a news release the global brewing giant issued May 15. The company’s total spending on these facilities will reach $2 billion by 2020.

The new investment announcement comes less than two years after Anheuser-Busch InBev had announced plans to spend $4.5 million on the Lysander factory, part of $1.5 billion in overall spending on the firm’s U.S. brewing, agriculture, packaging, and distributing operations by 2018. That project included enabling the Lysander plant to produce the new Mixxtails bottled product and the new Bud Light Lime bottle, the company said in 2015. Those upgrades have been completed, Sullivan says.