The changes in the Greenlandic packaging and returnable bottle legislationwhich entered into force in 2024, continues to send tremors through the Greenlandic business structure.
Most significant was the closure of the beer and soda bottling plant Nuuk Imeq in 2024, where 50 employees were sent out on the streets. Now it’s KNI’s turn to close the warehouses in Nuuk, Maniitsoq and Qaqortoq and lay off 14 employees.
The changes in the Greenlandic packaging and returnable bottle legislationwhich entered into force in 2024, continues to send tremors through the Greenlandic business structure.
Most significant was the closure of the beer and soda bottling plant Nuuk Imeq in 2024, where 50 employees were sent out on the streets. Now it’s KNI’s turn to close the warehouses in Nuuk, Maniitsoq and Qaqortoq and lay off 14 employees.
– The warehouse function was established at a time when KNI was responsible for the distribution of beer and water. After the changes in the legislation, this distribution has largely ceased, because the customers now get the goods delivered directly from the suppliers.
– The warehouse’s original function has therefore ceased to exist, writes director of HR, communication and sustainability at KNI, Juliane Henningsen Heilmann, to Sermitsiaq.
New rules
Previously, KNI had a real monopoly on the distribution of beer and water in Greenland, because it was only allowed to use Nuuk Imeq’s returnable bottles. With the new rules in 2024, other forms of returnable packaging – especially cans – were allowed.
For consumers, liberalization meant more choices in stores. This means many more types of beer and also a number of popular brands in soft drinks, including Pepsi Max. But it also meant that we in Greenland had to say goodbye to Nuuk Imeq’s popular half-litre bottle of Faxe Kondi, which had over time developed into something of a Greenlandic super icon.
The changes did not happen without sword strikes and concerns among the traders either. Because the stores were not at all prepared to have to handle many different return packaging. But all that is in the past now.
The packaging reform has also gone beyond RAL, which previously had a good turnover by sailing the empty Nuuk Imeq bottles back from the coast to Nuuk. The Nuuk Imeq packaging has been converted to cans and plastic bottles that are sent for recycling, because the packaging is still returnable packaging, but it is compressed in the shops – and therefore there is not the same business in sailing with empty packaging as before.
Warehouse put up for sale
Now the large warehouse at the old shipping port in Nuuk is to be sold.
The Royal Arctic Line owns the building, but after the opening of the new cargo terminal at Qeqertanut, the need for a large warehouse in the old port has gradually disappeared. The warehouse contains a number of tenancies. In addition to KNI’s previous warehouse, it is, among others, KK Engros, GFLK and Arktisk Kommando.
The building was built in three stages, with the original part built in 1970, the first extension in 1982, and the last extension in 1988.
The warehouse is for sale through Lynges.gl, where the owner cand.jur. Miki Lynge has set a price tag of DKK 110 million for the large building with a total of 9,132 m2 of commercial space.
The area consists of approximately 6014 m2 warehouse with office facilities, a further approximately 879 m2 offices, approximately 345 m2 workshop and 1894 m2 cold and freezer halls.
Sermitsiaq has asked Miki Lynge who he thinks will buy the building, but he keeps his cards close to his body.
– Now we are scanning the market, but I do not want to reveal how the interest is. But it is an attractive commercial property with many possibilities in logistics, office and storage, so we will probably get it sold, says the law-trained real estate agent optimistically.
When Nuuk Imeq closed, the large factory building was sold to the shipping group Blue Water, which has set up a warehouse and Greenland headquarters in the old bottling plant.
The building is 9,800 m2 – roughly the same size as the warehouse that is now for sale. According to the company’s own information, Blue Water gave just over DKK 100 million for the Nuuk Imeq building.
