On October 8th, the Tsingtao Brewery, with a history of 121 years, was awarded the title of "Sustainable Lighthouse Factory." On the same day, the World Economic Forum announced a new batch of "Lighthouse Factories," and the Tsingtao Brewery, which had previously been recognized as a "Lighthouse Factory," reached a new level, becoming the first "Sustainable Lighthouse Factory" in the global food and beverage industry.

The transition from a "Lighthouse Factory" to a "Sustainable Lighthouse Factory" signifies not only that the Tsingtao Brewery has integrated multiple world-leading technological applications, setting industry benchmarks in production efficiency and operational agility, but also highlights the brewery's peerless strength in energy conservation, emission reduction, and green manufacturing.

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In the traditional industry of beer brewing, Tsingtao Beer has not only become a global industry benchmark in recent years but has also continuously led trends in a broad range of fields and explored more possibilities. Behind this is the proactive action of Tsingtao Beer, which has grasped the pulse of the times for a century. The new propositions of the era have also "brewed" changes in traditional industries, promoting Tsingtao Beer's move towards innovation.

Change in Industrial Model: Digitalization and Intelligence Open Up New Spaces

Barley, hops, yeast, and water, a few simple ingredients brew traditional beer, which also contains heritage and experience. As beer brewing evolves from industrialization to digitalization and intelligence, leading enterprises actively innovate while maintaining traditions, promoting digitalization, agility, and intelligence in production, and driving product differentiation and high-end positioning.

Couples about to get married can directly connect with Tsingtao Beer to customize 15 boxes of "private beer" printed with wedding photos; within less than 24 hours, fresh Tsingtao draft beer can be delivered to consumers' tables in Shanghai, more than 700 kilometers away. The flexible production and agile manufacturing that traditional production lines could not imagine have become a reality at Tsingtao Beer. The digitalization and intelligence of production and manufacturing directly point to the new model leading the industry's change.

Digitalization and intelligence have become powerful tools to improve production efficiency in many industries. In the rapidly changing food and beverage industry, Tsingtao Beer pays more attention to pushing production from the market end, through consumer big data analysis and C2M (Customer to Manufacturer), to break through the "end-to-end" supply chain, accurately identify user needs, and share data in real-time with R&D, production, logistics, suppliers, and sales terminals, to accurately predict and quickly respond to demand fluctuations in advance.

The Tsingtao Brewery, founded in 1903, has an uninterrupted production history of 121 years. Today, the production of Tsingtao draft beer here is initiated by the data platform automatically generating instructions after the user places an order. In short, users propose demands, the supply chain and production chain respond intelligently, and the "Lighthouse Factory" is the foundation that ensures the realization of this clear logic.

In March 2021, the World Economic Forum announced in Geneva, Switzerland, that the "Global Lighthouse Network" welcomed new members, and the Tsingtao Brewery was successfully selected, becoming a new batch of "Lighthouse Factories" along with companies such as Bosch, HP, Johnson & Johnson, Procter & Gamble, Siemens, and Foxconn. The Industrial Internet "Lighthouse Factory" is not just a manufacturing revolution but a comprehensive change in business models, product development models, production models, quality management models, and consumer services.Based on the digitalized production end, Tsingtao Beer has been able to continuously innovate and adapt in a timely manner on the product end. In 2024, Tsingtao Beer launched the new Augut A series, which allows young people to fully express their fashionable attitude from product positioning to taste quality. This new product accurately matches consumer scenarios such as banquets, gatherings, gifts, and personalized on-the-go drinking, fully satisfying consumers' new needs to showcase their individuality. From developing a new product every few years to developing 10 to 20 new products a year, Tsingtao Beer's response to market demand is accelerating.

So far, in addition to classic, pure draft, and white beer, Tsingtao Beer also has a product matrix of more than 70 categories across 9 major series, including Legend of a Lifetime, Century Journey, Good Fortune Ahead, Augut A series, Pilsner, and IPA. It洞察s trends on top of quality to meet diverse and personalized needs. In recent years, Tsingtao Beer has been at the forefront of the industry in terms of the number of new product launches, sales revenue, and market share.

Innovation at the source has become a new driving force for the industry.

From continuously strengthening the ability to innovate at the source to breakthroughs in innovation across multiple links and fields, Tsingtao Beer has not only broken through some key technologies in the industry in recent years but has also promoted its own high-quality development with a systematic layout of "industry-university-research-institute-application" integration.

In the food and beverage industry, strains play a key role like "chips," affecting and even determining product flavor, quality stability, brewing performance, production efficiency, resource consumption, and other aspects. The beer industry is a typical representative of the field of food biomanufacturing. Tsingtao Beer has leveraged its technical accumulation and innovation advantages to address the common technical challenges in this field. It has broken through the fine genetic map of industrial yeast, elucidated the mechanism of industrial adaptability, and established precise and efficient strain selection technology. It has optimized existing strains and selected new strains with unique flavors, achieving an international leading position.

As early as 1994, Tsingtao Beer was the first in China to establish a beer research institution to carry out technical research and development. Its independently completed projects, such as "Development and Application of Beer Flavor Spectrum Technology" and "Development and Application of High-Efficiency and Low-Consumption Brewing Technology," have successively won the second prize of the National Science and Technology Progress Award. In recent years, Tsingtao Beer has leveraged the radiating, driving, and leading role of the only national key laboratory in the brewing industry. It has focused on international frontier issues and common technical challenges, continuously carrying out applied basic research and common technology research, and deepening the integration of industry, university, research institute, and application practices.

In June 2024, as the main completing unit of the project "Key Technologies and Applications for Efficient Selection and Optimization of Industrial Strains in Food Biomanufacturing," Tsingtao Beer once again won the second prize of the National Science and Technology Progress Award. As the only listed brewing company, this is also the fourth time Tsingtao Beer has won the National Science and Technology Progress Award.

From source innovation to continuously achieving breakthroughs from "1 to N," it has become an important driving force for the high-quality development of Tsingtao Beer.

In the past, due to the limitations of transportation conditions and geographical distance, draft beer often appeared in consumers' minds as a "specialty" that could only be tasted locally in Qingdao. However, with the comprehensive upgrade of cold chain and logistics, draft beer has become a hot-selling single product. Compared with common draft beer on the market, Tsingtao Beer's fine draft beer inherits the century-old classic low-temperature slow-brewing process of Tsingtao Beer. In the production process, it strictly adheres to the "three no's" principle of "no filtration," "no dilution," and "no sterilization." No filtration ensures the flavor of the raw materials themselves, rich in amino acids and other nutrients; no dilution, the original wort concentration is as high as 13°P, with a high content of flavor substances, possessing a richer and more malty flavor. No sterilization, the liquor is rich in active yeast, with high nutritional value.

Pure Draft is one of the best-selling products under Tsingtao Beer. Faced with the new trend of consumer upgrading, Tsingtao Beer launched the "advanced version" Crystal Pure Draft. Due to the retention of more active substances in the product, Crystal Pure Draft has a shelf life of only 21 days. To match the fresh characteristics of the product, R&D personnel of Tsingtao Beer have customized and developed high-end patented aluminum bottles for the product. The ultra-large neck ratio of the aluminum bottle locks freshness better, creating a top-level "fresh-keeping space" for the pure draft.Leveraging an extensive transportation network, Tsingtao Beer has been the first to achieve fresh delivery of draft beer and crystal pure draft across the country, using various methods such as air, high-speed rail, and road transport to cold-chain deliver directly to consumers' tables nationwide.

The century-old brand focuses on new questions of the era

As a modern enterprise with a history of 121 years, Tsingtao Beer possesses the calm and composure to traverse cycles, and in the new era, it also has the ambition to keep up with new questions of the times and to open up new directions for development.

China is deeply advancing the construction of ecological civilization and green, low-carbon development, actively and steadily promoting carbon peak and carbon neutrality, and accelerating the creation of a green, low-carbon supply chain. The brewing industry has always been a major emitter, and Tsingtao Beer has set an example for the industry with its leading practices.

In the past three years, Tsingtao Beer has accelerated the coverage of renewable energy electricity. By the end of 2023, 50 Tsingtao Beer factories in 16 provinces and cities across the country have used renewable energy electricity, accounting for 74% of the total electricity consumption. Tsingtao Beer has also promoted the development of green factories, pushing factories towards intensive land use, harmless raw materials, clean production, resource utilization of waste, and low-carbon energy. Currently, the group has 22 factories that have been awarded the national green factory honorary title, leading the beer industry.

" This year, companies awarded as 'Sustainable Lighthouse' have played their role as global benchmarks for excellent operational standards due to their industry-leading position in reducing carbon emissions and their progress in promoting a circular economy." The World Economic Forum said after Tsingtao Beer Factory was awarded the new batch of "Sustainable Lighthouse Factories."

As the "chain leader" of the industry, Tsingtao Beer has also actively driven the industrial chain and supply chain, playing a "leading" role in creating a green supply chain and enhancing industrial competitiveness.

By using low-carbon packaging materials and applying low-carbon transportation methods, Tsingtao Beer has driven the green transformation and upgrading of the industrial chain and supply chain, including glass bottles, cans, and cardboard boxes. It has also pioneered a waste water value-sharing project in China, creating a new circular economy model that synergizes pollution reduction and carbon reduction among upstream and downstream players.

For Tsingtao Beer, upgrading to a sustainable lighthouse factory not only means that the Tsingtao Beer Factory has reached the global first-class enterprise standard in the digital transformation of the intelligent manufacturing field but also represents a comprehensive transformation and innovation of Tsingtao Beer in product research and development, production management, consumer service, supply chain systems, and other fields. This is also the growth momentum for Tsingtao Beer in the next step. Currently, accelerating the formation of new quality production forces is an inevitable requirement for promoting the construction of Chinese-style modernization. As a giant in light manufacturing, Tsingtao Beer is also actively exploring a new model of "manufacturing + service" integration.

From the Time Coast Craft Beer Garden to more than 200 TSINGTAO 1903 bars across the country, and to the Tsingtao Beer Festival, music festivals, and viewing parties across the country... Tsingtao Beer has wholeheartedly created a series of new beer fashion life formats with feelings, and created a series of new beer fashion life styles with connotations. With "charming scenes" to help consumption upgrade, and to extend, widen, and deepen the industrial chain, Tsingtao Beer is also continuously exploring new paths and opening up new tracks and spaces.