Science - September 16, 2004

Grolsch seeks expertise

The brewers Grolsch announced earlier this week that they are seeking collaboration with Wageningen UR.

‘The market for beer is saturated,’ explains Grolsch spokesman Coen Thönissen. ‘And it shrinks a bit each year. If you want to continue growing you have to come up with something new: new marketing, new products or ways of staying ahead of your competitors. The best way to go about this is to collaborate with universities.’

Thönissen was not prepared to divulge the exact nature of Grolsch’s plans with Wageningen. ‘We hope to sign a cooperation agreement within a couple of weeks,’ he says. ‘When we’ve done that I’ll be able to say more.’ Under a similar agreement with the University of Twente the brewer will sponsor chairs, research projects and internships. University lecturers will also give lectures and courses at the brewery. ‘In Twente we’ll be concentrating on packaging. In Wageningen we plan to work on the product itself, especially making use of the expertise of the nutritional technologists here.’ / WK