Coca‑Cola Enterprises is to invest £30m in a new automated warehouse at Wakefield which will double storage capacity allowing it to deliver more product direct to customers rather than via external warehouses.
Wakefield is the site of CCE’s largest bottling plant. The company expects to save about 500,000 road miles a year by delivering direct to customers rather storing product at external warehouses.
Site operations director Ian Johnson said: “We are committed to manufacturing in this country, and are proud of the ongoing investment in the Wakefield site. The £30m investment is crucial to developing our business in line with our fundamental objective to grow more, while minimising our impact on the environment. Sustainability is in our DNA, and is at the heart of our business decisions.”
In total, Coca-Cola Enterprises is investing some £50m at three sites in the UK. Simon Baldry, Managing Director of Coca‑Cola Enterprises in GB, said: “We are committed to manufacturing in this country and are proud that 95 per cent of what we sell is made in Great Britain. The £50m investment is crucial to developing our business in line with our fundamental objective to grow more, while minimising our impact on the environment.”
The company is investing £5.4m in manufacturing at East Kilbride to produce lightweight PET bottles, reducing the amount of plastic required, and allowing for future capability to continue to reduce the weight of these packs.
And at Sidcup it is spending £15m on a new canning line to increase the site’s capacity by an additional 20 million cases of product per year.