The Challenge
Grey Trees predominantly packaged its beer in bottles, filled by hand by a small team already responsible for the many competing jobs involved in running an independent brewery. The process was slow, products repeatedly sold out and maintaining consistent packaged stock had become a persistent operational challenge.
The impact extended beyond the brewery floor. Grey Trees wanted to grow their direct relationship with customers through online sales, rather than pursue the lower-margin, high-volume demands of major supermarkets. But glass bottles were heavy and vulnerable in transit. Grey Trees had to replace broken bottles and the cost of insuring deliveries and the negative customer experience was too difficult to justify.
"We stopped online sales with our bottles because they would just get smashed. Then we'd have to replace them, and the whole experience was quite negative."
The wider UK packaging market was also moving. Grey Trees' first conversation with Cask highlighted the changing economics of glass under Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR Tax), but their reasons for moving towards cans was ultimately an opportunity to improve availability, reopen a viable route to online trade and reduce the operational friction surrounding every packaged order. Yet moving away from bottles introduced the risk of purchasing the wrong canning system.
Grey Trees had already experienced the consequences of an equipment decision that did not work. A second-hand bottling machine had failed to deliver, leaving the team cautious about making another significant capital investment without reliable equipment, proper training and long-term support.
They reviewed several suppliers, and had some clear requirements: the line had to be straightforward for two people to operate, fit within a working brewery, integrate with their existing labeler and turntables, protect beer quality and provide enough throughput to support growth from a 15-barrel operation towards 30 barrels.
It also had to represent a disciplined investment. Grey Trees did not want to choose an undersized machine simply because it was cheaper. But they equally did not want to pay for automation and capacity designed for millions of cans or national supermarket distribution.
The challenge was not to find the largest or fastest machine within budget. It was to find the precise level of capability that matched the brewery Grey Trees was and the business it intended to become.
The Solution
Grey Trees was building a business centred on their customers, local trade, online orders and greater control over product availability.
They started by moving backwards through their operating model, working with Cask to compare throughput, automation, staffing requirements, seaming technology and expected return on investment.
The Nano ACS can package approximately 4.3 hectolitres per hour. Enough to support the brewery’s expansion while creating significant room to increase volume by adding canning days as demand grew. It could be operated by two people and provided the beer-quality controls expected by a brewing-led team.
Cask’s dual fill heads use a dedicated foam-generation valve to create a protective foam cap during filling, helping displace oxygen before the lid is applied. Fill-level probes respond to the beverage in each can rather than depending on timed fills, supporting greater consistency as tank conditions change. This was especially important to Ray and the brewing team, who identified dissolved oxygen and carbonation control as critical considerations throughout the buying process.
Cask then tailored the physical setup around the equipment Grey Trees already owned. A whale-tail infeed funnel provided enough accumulation to keep cans moving steadily into the Nano ACS without requiring a full Depalletiser. At the outfeed, the system was designed to connect with Grey Trees’ existing labeler and turntable, avoiding another layer of unnecessary capital expenditure.
Cask provided hands-on support during their review process by configuring around their existing equipment and providing customised floor layouts. That hands-on approach continued throughout the build and delivery, completed with a two-day on-site training and commissioning with Cask Technicians to train their team using their own products and production conditions. The onboarding covered system operation, filling, seaming, dissolved oxygen, cleaning, preventative maintenance and troubleshooting.
The principle throughout was to make the transition into canning as straightforward as possible, protect Grey Trees from unnecessary costs and set their team up to feel confident operating their equipment. It was a consultative decision grounded in restraint, finding the right fit system for their growth, and a better return on their investment quicker.
The Results
Grey Trees now has a packaging system aligned with how they actually want to grow.
Rather than depending on slow hand-filled bottles or outsourcing production to a mobile canner or co-packer, their team can package in-house, on their own schedule and in quantities determined by stock and customer demand.
- A strong foundation for growing online trade
- The ability to package 860 500ml cans per hour
- A more practical path to keeping its most popular beers available
- Quality packaged product with a long shelf-life
- A compact, two-operator configuration that fits into the brewery
What began as an equipment purchase had become an integrated packaging relationship spanning the canning system, training, technical support and the cans running through the line.
For Grey Trees, moving beyond bottles was not about chasing scale for its own sake. It was about retiring a packaging model that was restricting availability, transportability and customer access and replacing it with one capable of supporting the brewery’s next chapter.
The result is a more sustainable and scalable packaging future, built around the brewery Grey Trees is proud to be.
