Cash bottled up at firm as business bubbling
The coronavirus lockdown saw one bottling plant working at record production levels as it won plenty of new business.
Many breweries in the region turned to Holden’s Bottling Company’s line for help as their pubs were forced to shut and they had no way of bottling beer for themselves.
One of those was Brierley Hill-based Batham’s, which had faced having to pour away 26,000 pints of bitter with all its dozen pubs shut due to the lockdown.
But the beer was taken by tanker to the bottling plant based in Woodsetton instead.
Holden’s Bottling Company, in George Street, has taken on six extra staff to cope as it has hit full capacity and has had to start bottling on Saturday mornings as well because of the surge in demand for its services.
Director Mark Hammond said the business had taken on eight new customers during lockdown – which had proved to be its busiest ever time.
They were mainly breweries, but there was also new business won in cider and soft drink bottling.
“We have never done so much work,” Mr Hammond said.
“It just went up and up through the lockdown and it is still going strong.”
Mr Hammond said that they had also managed to get more out of the plant and the team of 38 who are now employed there.
Volume of bottle output is up by 100 per cent on the same period last year, with 1,000 barrels a week being processed and 350,000 bottles of beer, cider and soft drinks coming out of the plant. “We invested last year in new filtration and filling equipment,” Mr Hammond continued.
“We wouldn’t have been able to do what we did without that.”
The family-run bottling company, formed in 1943, does all the bottling of real ales for its sister company Holden’s Brewery.
It started out as a small plant at the rear of the Park Inn in George Street before growing to where it stands today.
In recent years the bottling plant has been refurbished and modern methods have been adopted as it has won contracts working with many established brewers, as well as micro and craft breweries around the country.
Mr Hammond, a third generation family member, said that the bottling business would match total 2019 production in mid-September at this rate.
“We are still ultra busy in bottling and there is no signs of it letting up,” he added.
The Holden’s brewing business at the Holden’s Brewery next to the bottling plant celebrated its centenary in 2015.
The independent brewery has 19 pubs across the Black Country, Staffordshire and Shropshire which it supplies. Its bottled beers, including Golden Glow, Black Country Special, Dragon’s Blood and Old Ale, are also sold from the brewery shop off the A457 Sedgley Road found in Woodsetton.
Holden’s now also supplies its bottled beers to many supermarket chains, with sales growing nationally.
The bottling company also offers warehouse storage for its customers and carries out beer processing on-site to prepare ales for bottling.
It has its own tanker for collecting beer from breweries, with four compartments to take different types of beer from the customer to the plant.
