Scottish & Newcastle goes ice cold in Russia

19th July 2006

Scotsman Beverage Systems, one of Europe’s leading suppliers of drink cooling and dispense equipment, is supplying Scottish & Newcastle with Tarka condensating fonts and mini cooling pods as the brewer introduces its extra cold Foster’s and Kronenbourg brands into Russia.

S&N is initially installing its Tarka technology for the premium Foster’s Super Chilled and Kronenbourg 1664 Cold Premiere brands into high profile bars, clubs and restaurants in Moscow and St Petersburg.

Dmitry Shirshov, S&N brand development director, said:  “Tarka is one of our key innovations.  It’s been very successful in the UK and continental Europe, creating a significant lift in beer volume sales.  Russia is emerging as one of the biggest beer markets in the world so it’s logical that we roll out the extra cold concept there as well.”

Tarka is a range of striking, high quality, chrome finish condensating fonts which use mini, under-shelf heat exchange cooling pods to chill the lager to 2–4^oC.  Developed jointly by S&N and Scotsman Beverage Systems, the fonts condense only on the customer facing surfaces, giving the same high visual impact as a fully flooded font but with better control of the run off water.  They also use only 15% of the heat load of a fully flooded unit, cutting energy consumption costs.

S&N recently bought the rights to Foster’s in Europe, Turkey and the former Soviet territories and Shirshov confirmed that the move has influenced their decision to introduce the premium extra cold brand into Russia:  “We were the first brewers into Russia and acquiring the rights to Foster’s has further strengthened our already strong commitment to the region.  We now have the freedom and the commercial interest to promote the Tarka version of the brand in a market which is growing rapidly in both volume and value.”

Marc Le Belleguy, Scotsman Beverage Systems’ key account director for S&N, said:  “Draught beer systems in Russia until now haven’t been very advanced so introducing what is an innovative and high specification technical solution into this potentially huge market is a measure of both the success of Tarka and of S&N’s commitment to the extra cold concept.”

The Tarka technology was originally developed for Foster’s Super Chilled and introduced just a year ago.  It has become so successful that S&N and Scotsman Beverage Systems have adapted the design for a range of brands including Foster’s, Kronenbourg, Strongbow, Maes Superchilled, Sagres and Sagres Chopp.  Scotsman is currently manufacturing dozens of variations of the Tarka fonts to meet the local needs of different continental markets.