Diageo to invest €400m more in Kildare brewery

Diageo has announced plans to invest a further €400m in its newly-opened brewery in Littleconnell in Co Kildare.

The drinks company officially opened the brewery, following an almost €300m investment.

The Littleconnell brewery is currently focused on the production of lagers and ales – including brands like Hop House 13 and Smithwicks.

Around 650 people worked on the brewery during its construction, with just over 50 permanent, full-time roles created following its completion.

When first announced in 2022, Diageo said the Kildare facility would free up space and capacity at Dublin’s St James’s Gate for the production of Guinness and Guinness 0.0.

However, this morning it said it would start building a second brewery in Littleconnell, which would produce Guinness and Guinness 0.0 for export.

“We will continue to make Guinness for Ireland, the United Kingdom and also our big American market in St James’s Gate,” said Colin O’Brien, Diageo’s head of global beer supply. “The brewery here will support the growth of Guinness in new markets and the developing markets we have around the world.”

Diageo said the latest announcement brings investment committed by the company to €1 billion between 2020 and 2029.

We need your consent to load this rte-player contentWe use rte-player to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences

That figure also includes money invested in improving the sustainability of St James’s Gate and the company’s packaging facility in Belfast.

In its quarterly results last week, Diageo revealed a sharp drop in North American sales – highlighting the challenging conditions of the market.

However Mr O’Brien said Guinness was bucking the broader trend facing the business.

“We’re seeing fantastic performance of Guinness both in North America and across our other global markets,” he said. “We’re really confident that with this investment, we can continue to support that growth.

“Tariffs are an issue, but we’re working through that and trying to drive the efficiencies the best we can through a new brewery here to minimise the impact of that on consumers.”

Diageo’s new CEO Dave Lewis is due to unveil his turnaround strategy for the business in August.

From his time at both Unilever and Tesco, Mr Lewis has developed a reputation for aggressive cost-cutting, however Mr O’Brien said the latest round of investment made clear how valued the Guinness brand was.

“As is proven by the €1 billion capital investment programme, Guinness will remain front and centre of that strategy well into the future,” he said.

There had been reports during the tenure of Diageo’s previous CEO Debra Crew that the company could break Guinness away from the rest of the group. However Mr O’Brien was confident that such a move was not on the table today.

“I think we’ve done very well with Diageo and as part of the Spirits-Beer combination that we have and we continue to see fantastic progress with that,” he said. “I think the global growth we’re experiencing across Guinness is a demonstration of Diageo’s scale and reach and ability to drive performance.”