Heineken Italy invests €700,000 for annual water saving
Heineken Italy has announced a significant €700,000 investment in its Massafra brewery to implement a cutting-edge rainwater recovery and treatment system.
The initiative is expected to save 13,000 cubic meters of water per year — equivalent to roughly five Olympic-sized swimming pools — bolstering the facility’s resilience in a region frequently hit by droughts.
The project, developed in partnership with local Puglian company Technoacque, focuses on collecting and refining rainwater for technical use. This recovered water will be used for machinery cooling and lubrication systems, ensuring it remains completely separate from the beer production process while significantly reducing the brewery’s reliance on local freshwater sources.
The Massafra plant, a critical production hub for Southern Italy, is already ahead of schedule regarding Heineken’s global sustainability goals. While the Group’s “Brew a Better World” strategy sets a target of 2.9 hectoliters (hl) of water per hectoliter of beer produced by 2030, Massafra reached 2.8 hl/hl by the end of 2025.
With this new investment, the brewery has set an even more ambitious local target: reducing consumption to below 2.6 hl/hl by 2030.
“In Heineken Italy, sustainability is not a novelty; we have been committed since 2010 to improving the environmental impact of our breweries,” said Leo Gasparri, sustainability manager at Heineken Italy. “The water recycling project in Massafra is a concrete step that combines corporate commitment with respect for the local territory and community.”
The €700,000 allocation is split between two primary phases:
- €300,000 for the advanced filtration and treatment plant.
- €400,000 for the civil engineering works required to integrate the system into the existing production site.
Alessandro Merlo, director of the Massafra Brewery, highlighted the importance of the partnership with Technoacque: “We chose a local partner with whom we share an attention to the community and long-term vision. Investing in such an innovative solution means taking care of local resources and those who work with us.”
As Italy’s leading brewer, Heineken operates four major breweries across the country (Comun Nuovo, Assemini, Massafra, and Pollein). The Massafra investment serves as a “sustainable innovation laboratory,” proving that high-volume industrial production can successfully adapt to the environmental realities of water-stressed regions like Puglia.
To ensure transparency, Heineken has confirmed that the project will undergo independent third-party verification to validate the projected water savings once the system is fully operational.
