Quality & Sustainability

Simply because they go with the territory.

Awards-winning quality

Quality is the top priority at OeTTINGER BEVERAGES

Using first-class raw materials, state-of-the-art brewing and production technology along with seamless internal and external quality controls, we guarantee absolute top quality. We are regularly certified according to IFS (International Featured Standards) and eco-audits and have been presented with medals by the DLG (German Food Association). Since 1980 alone, we have received over 320 DLG awards! In addition, we have received 16 international Gold & High Quality awards, 12 German state awards and 5 national awards for consistently high performance and quality.

WirtschaftsWoche study: “Excellent Consumer Service”

1. June 2026 | Quality

We have placed among the top seven businesses for consumer service in the latest sector rankings compiled by the business magazine WirtschaftsWoche and the market research company ServiceValue. In the “Breweries” category, German consumers have ranked us as “excellent”.

OeTTINGER beers offer impressive value for money once again

5. February 2026 | Quality

In 2026, OeTTINGER once again ranks among the brands offering the best value for money in Germany. This was confirmed by the latest value for money rankings from Handelsblatt, which draws on data obtained as part of a large-scale consumer survey carried out by the market research and data analytics firm YouGov.

14th North Rhine-Westphalia State Award for Food Products

24. November 2025 | Quality

For the 14th consecutive year, we have been honored with the North Rhine-Westphalia State Award for Food Products. The award was accepted in Dusseldorf by Dr. Marco Potreck, Operations Manager at our Mönchengladbach site, and Sven Willlim, Deputy Production Manager. It was presented by Silke Gorißen, Minister for Agriculture and Consumer Protection in the state government of North Rhine Westphalia.

Efficient and resource-conserving production…

…is embedded in our corporate strategy, the OeTTINGER BEVERAGES Concept. With our “Fit for the Future” energy efficiency program for the company’s operations, we have also committed to continuously reducing energy consumption in production, bottling and delivery. ISO-certified …and with growing success.

Examples:

We always work with the latest and consequently, the most energy-efficient technology in our plants.
We generate our own environmentally friendly electricity in our combined heat and power plants in Oettingen and Mönchengladbach.
Thanks to presence-dependent LED lighting controls in our bottling halls, we require extremely little energy, saving hundreds of tons of CO₂ every year in this way.
We are also working on smart grids, i.e. intelligent electricity grid management, and on more efficient use of the gas from our wastewater treatment plants to generate heat.

Our raw materials

We capture the CO₂ that is produced during the fermentation process in brewing and reuse it as carbonation for our beverages.
We provide the spent grain remaining after brewing, known as brewer’s grain, to farmers who use it as animal feed.
We cultivate the yeast for our beers ourselves at each of our four breweries. Any surplus yeast is passed on and used, among other things, as a base ingredient for natural cosmetic products.

Two hands hold some yeast from Oettinger

Regionally across Germany

Oettingen in Bavaria and Mönchengladbach in North Rhine-Westphalia – this is where we are at home: It’s where we brew and blend your drinks. Regionally across Germany. The major advantages for the environment are obvious:

Our raw materials come from certified partners in the respective regions of our plants and are processed on site.
We also bottle our beverages directly at our production facilities and deliver the returnable glass products from there to local markets using our own fleet of trucks.
This guarantees short, efficient routes and, above all, ensures the best quality and freshness from the region.
With 200 to 400 personnel at each of our sites, we are also a major employer.

Reusable – without the bells and whistles

For the German market, we mainly bottle our OeTTINGER BEVERAGES’ range of drinks in returnable glass bottles. We use what are known in the industry as “pool bottles”, i.e. standard shapes without any branding. It means that any other brewery can also use these bottles… and this in turn fulfils the original intent of the reusable system: The faster a bottle is returned and the more often it is reused, the more sustainable it is. Have you ever noticed whitish rings above the label on the front of a bottle? The clearer they are, the more often the bottle has been used. It’s why we affectionately call these marks Sustainability Rings.
Most of our bottles end up in typical OeTTINGER blue standard cases. We use just three bottle shapes for over 30 varieties and this enables us to have only three different case shapes. Uniformity in diversity: Reusable – without the bells and whistles. You can find out more about this in the short videos from our Reusability Month of May.