The bottling of Heineken beer in Laško was launched on Monday. The beer will be sold in the former Yugoslavia, north Italy and Hungary.

Dušan Zorko, the director of Pivovarna Laško Union, told the Večer newspaper that this gave Laško the status of strategic brewery in the Heineken group while filling spare capacity.

Last week the bottling of Heineken cider commenced in the company's second location in Ljubljana.

Pivovarna Laško Union last year produced roughly 2.2 million hectolitres of beer. It expects to increase production by several hundred thousand hectolitres on account of bottling Heineken.

While the company has reduced its workforce by nearly a quarter since the acquisition, to about 650, it could hire additional staff if other Heineken brands are bottled in Slovenia as well, according to Zorko.