Mattoni together with Budvar present unique flavoured non-alcoholic beer BIRGO
Two Czech icons Mattoni and Budvar have teamed up to launch a unique flavoured non-alcoholic beer. The new product, called BIRGO, is hitting stores in three flavours these days. It is the result of a collaboration between two renowned beverage experts - the flavours from the leader of the non-alcoholic market Mattoni 1873 are combined with non-alcoholic beer brewed in the national brewery Budějovický Budvar, which has a worldwide reputation. Both major Czech companies have also agreed on a common approach to circularity in the beverage industry, which completes Budějovický Budvar's entry into the Zálohujme.cz initiative.
"Cooperation with Budějovický Budvar makes a lot of sense to me. Not only have we jointly developed a great-tasting product, but we also share the same views on sustainable business and believe that we need to put circular principles into practice. I am glad that our colleagues from Budvar have joined us in the Zálohujme.cz initiative and I look forward to a long-term collaboration," says Alessandro Pasquale, CEO of Mattoni 1873.
"We are very happy about the cooperation with Mattoni in Budvar. We have teamed up with a traditional Czech brand that looks at things the same way, shares the same values and approaches its work with honesty and joy. It was clear to us from the beginning that something great had to be created," adds Petr Dvořák, CEO of Budějovický Budvar.
Unique combination
The beer base is based on the recipe of Budvar non-alcoholic beer. The Mattoni brand has used its extensive experience with consumer taste preferences and carefully fine-tuned the final flavours, as the bitterness of non-alcoholic beer requires special flavour combinations and their intensity. In addition to the two traditional and popular citrus mixes Grapefruit and Lemon-Lime, BIRGO also appears in the unique Mango-Lime variant, which is not offered by any other producer on the Czech market.
The composition of BIRGO corresponds to the trends of the beermix category and pushes them even further, whether by emphasizing a fresh taste with a lower than usual content of added sugar or, on the contrary, a higher proportion of beer component in the drink. Consumer testing of the product has confirmed its high popularity and the positive perception of the combination of brands with great reputation and technological know-how. This is a unique combination of two such important representatives of the world of alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages, whose historical tradition also dates back to the 19th century.
Sustainable beermix
The strategic cooperation between two Czech icons on a new product has an overlap into the field of sustainable business.
BIRGO is produced exclusively in Budějovický Budvar on a new modern line with an hourly capacity of up to 50,000 cans, which the brewery officially launched at the end of March. The highly advanced technological equipment of the line contributes to a significantly more efficient use of water, heat and electricity.
As the first non-alcoholic beer in the Czech Republic , BIRGO is packaged in paper multipacks, which also do not contain glue. This is a wrap-around technology with recycled paper, which saves 16% of carbon footprint compared to conventional plastic films. The can material itself contains 74% recycled aluminium.
At a press conference to launch the new product, the Budějovický Budvar national brewery also announced its accession to the Zálohujme.cz initiative, which has long supported the introduction of returnable deposits for PET bottles and cans in the Czech Republic. Budvar, like the co-founder of this initiative, Mattoni 1873, is interested in the most environmentally friendly management of beverage packaging and bottle-to-bottle recycling, in this case
"can to can".