Who are the Trappists?

Banja Luka Brewery was founded in 1873 Founders of the brewery are the monks of the monastery Marija Zvijezda the Trappist order. The monastery is located near the brewery.
Trappists belong to the religious order who lives according to the rules of St. Benedict. Trappist order was first mentioned in 17th century by appearance of reformatory movement that began in the monastery Noter Dam de la Trape. They are named after the monastery and are widespread throughout the world. The characteristic of this order is that they remove from the church all that is superfluous, motto of the order is silence and work.
They are related to the obligation of silence, although not consecrated to silence.

The silence in their order is only in the time available for prayer. Between prayers theirs day shall be filled with work, since by their word, the devil resides in idleness. They are known in the whole world to have organized various forms of production and in its production they have engaged local residents. Wherever they came, they have organized the production of cheese, beer, cloth, and its products are sold in the local market. The order is known to have orphanages in monasteries in which they accepted the abandoned children, cared for them, taught them crafts, the story says that when adult children’s from their orphanage leave, they leave with the knowledge of one of the crafts and with tools necessary to begin the job itself, for which they learned.

History of the Banja Luka Brewery

Trappists came to Banja Luka in mid-19th century, buying land in Delibašino village, founded the monastery and began its work. The founder of the monastery and the mover of all activity, and thus the founder of the Banja Luka Brewery was monk Franc Pfaner.
Among the first jobs run brewing. The first production of which was test launched in 1873 which is taken and as the date of the Banja Luka Brewery.
At that time, they starting with the production of cheese (in days of biggest production they were producing up to 400 kg of cheese per day), production of macaroni, cloth, building the first hydro power plant, build a bridge over the river Vrbas.




In all these activities they have employed local people. Brewers in the beginning tried to produce malt alone, however the results were not satisfactory.

For many years the brewery itself produced sugar that is used in the brewing process. In the old hothouse (where the barley was sprouting) is now a new plant of ammonia compressor, and at the location of drying place for malt now are reservoirs for ammonia.

After the Second World War the brewery was nationalized and transferred to state ownership. Of all the jobs that they were doing, today remains only the beer.
"Banja Luka Brewery'' in 1975 entered in to composition of agro-industrial complexes `Bosanska Krajina`, until 1989 when by resignation became an independent company.
During the 1991 were changed ownership structure and 'Banja Luka Brewery is registered as a joint stock company with mixed ownership, where one part of the capital remained in social ownership, and the second part of capital by selling shares of internal employees, became shareholders. Later, on the basis of legislation, the capital in social ownership becomes the state-owned capital. At the same time Banja Luka brewery was named as company of interest to the Republika Srpska.

Early 2003 there was a transfer of state capital in to shareholders capital of Banja Luka Brewery, by which it became a joint stock company.
In late 2004 are completed investments in modernization and expansion of production facilities, bringing the production capacity raised to 1 million hectoliters of beer annually.
Banja Luka Brewery was one small Brewery which initially served only the needs of the monastery, and has grown into a large and modern brewery whose production capacity is sufficient to supply the entire market of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

In order to meet the needs of consumers and the overall modernization of business and market access, we are trying to be in step with the world's producers of beer, with the quality and appearance of the packaging. Frequent changes of form and method of packaging is happening because the market demands are changing very often.

Banja Luka Brewery does all that worthy of praise for their consumers primarily through the use of only the finest raw materials. That means German hops and malt and crystal clear waters of Banja Luka.
- We have been working hard to offer the best quality of our products to our consumers, and judging by the reactions of people, everything indicates that we succeeded.
In 2009 Banja Luka Brewery has invested in purchasing equipment for the packaging of beer in a modern and convenient packaging. Now we use the branded film, unlike the current carton packaging.
In addition, we have expanded our assortment with a 0.5L irreversible bottle, and thus enable our customers to enjoy the Nectar beer, while at the same time do not have to think about the return of bottles.
Beer lovers now can buy the branded foil packaging - 12 / 0.5L bottle (non-returnable bottles) and 24 pieces of 0.33L. In addition to a modern look, a new way of packaging in branded foil, all the production materials we purchase from local market, which is another way to help develop the local economy.

Market expansion and export

And in this year we continued our strategy of continuous investment in the expansion of sales areas to cover the whole BiH, as well as the introduction of innovation to attract new consumers. Renewed focus on exports will also help to accelerate sales growth. Our main goal is to take advantage of the high percentage of our capacity.
The first step when it comes to export was the expansion of the market. It is difficult at this point to talk about the growth of exports of beer because the markets in which we began to export is still fresh. In many countries, people just starting to get familiar with Nektar beer. Right now we have pleased consumers in the United States, Canada, UK, Austria, Sweden, Croatia and Serbia. State Committee for drinks in Toronto put the Nektar in list of regular suppliers, whereby distribution of the beer market expanded to 150. Negotiations are underway with large retail chains in these countries for the permanent introduction of Nektar beer in their standard offer.

Sponsorship

In Banja Luka brewery we always try to support as many cultural and entertainment events. We strive to support all kinds of activities, regardless of whether they are athletic, social or humanitarian character.
We are very active in the sphere of sports, especially basketball. KK Borac Nektar's leading basketball team in Bosnia and we are very proud of our joint history and winning. We have good cooperation and with the city's theater `Jazavac`, we support the young actors and their activities. Nektar was official beer at the World Rafting Championship 2009 and also the general sponsor of Nektar Demofest, the largest festival of young bands in the region. In scope of the Nectar Music Stage is organized and concert of Lenny Kravitz, with all this BL is slowly but surely approaching the world's leading cultural centers.

The protection of domestic production

Beer has always been the most popular alcoholic drink among most of the population in these areas. The difference between then and now is the fact that the local beer was once a favorite beer of the population, while today the situation is completely different. Foreign beers have taken a leadership position. Despite the fact that the local brewery has the capacity to meet the needs of the population, the lack of systems to protect domestic producers, foreign beer continues to be most consumed beer. In order to change this situation we cannot rely solely on the BiH authorities.
BIH is special in that it has the highest percentage of imported beers in Europe, which is somewhere around 60%. Most of the beers come from neighboring countries, which themselves are importing only three to five percent of its consumption, so we have a very unbalanced trade relations. For different reasons, and the most important one is that we have a trade policy, it is extremely difficult to import. Such situation last for almost five, six years. We are in a very disadvantaged situation and we want the government to take the initiative to support local producers. Finally, if you do not have domestic production, you have no job, and consequently no contributions and taxes, you just do not have the functional economy. I think this attitude needs to change, both from government and from consumers. The point is that a consumer should consume domestic products, as this will help the local economy. If we help ourselves it will be better for everybody, but a very small number of consumers see that. It is important to mention, that consuming imported products means lost money for the local economy.