The Swabian Oettinger brewery has been operating a plant in Gotha, Thuringia, for a good 30 years. The location is now closed. Thuringia’s Prime Minister Ramelow speaks of a “scandal”.
The Swabian Oettinger brewery will close its location in Gotha, Thuringia, at the end of 2022. The company, based in Oettingen in the Donau-Ries district, announced on Wednesday that parts of the production capacities and systems would be relocated to the three other brewery sites of the group of companies in Germany. The brewery is reacting to the “negative development of the sales volume in the beer market in recent years and is repositioning itself for the future”.
Thuringia’s Prime Minister Bodo Ramelow (left) called the process on the short message service Twitter an “incredible scandal”. The Gotha company is a well-managed company with over 220 jobs that are paid by collective bargaining agreements. On the basis of reusable offers, the brewery in Gotha works economically and is in the black. “Now you want to generate more returns with Einweg. Destroy the company and also the environment.”
In 1991, Oettinger took over the Gothaer brewery, which was a state-owned business during the GDR era. On the 30th anniversary of the takeover, the company announced that more than 100 million euros had been invested in the location, technology and logistics. This created the most modern and largest brewery in Thuringia with an annual output of around 1.4 million hectoliters.
