3 minute read - 28th November 2024
Coca-Cola to make £42.3m investment at Wakefield plant
Coca-Cola Europacific Partners (CCEP), the world’s largest independent bottler of Coca-Cola, is to make an investment of £42.3m in a new Automated Storage Retrieval System (ASRS) warehouse at its site in Wakefield, Europe’s largest soft drinks plant by volume.
The new ASRS warehouse will take two and a half years to build. To maximise space, it will stand at 38 metres tall and will increase Wakefield’s warehouse capacity, allowing it to hold and move an additional 29,500 pallets on top of its current capacity of 29,000 pallets. It will also deliver a reduction of 18,500 vehicle journeys per year from the road, equating to 441,000 km per year.
This funding follows a £31m site investment in 2023 to install a new state-of-the-art canning line capable of producing 2,000 cans per minute, which has been operational since July of this year. The line provides additional production capabilities for CCEP’s light-weight 330ml cans across brands including Coca-Cola, Diet Coke, Coca-Cola Zero Sugar, Fanta, Dr Pepper and Sprite.
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Coca-Cola Europacific Partners is to invest £42.3m at its Wakefield site, Europe’s largest soft drinks plant by volume / Picture: Coca-Cola Europacific Partners
As part of its ‘Everyone is Welcome’ ethos, CCEP has also been evolving its approach to recruitment, focusing on attributes like skills and potential rather than experience or qualifications, to encourage more people to consider a career in manufacturing. As part of its 550-strong workforce, this approach has helped the site attract more females to work on its new canning line this year; three of four team leaders are female and a total of 40/60 women to men gender split on the new line.
Since 2019, the site has received £103m in investment to enhance efficiencies and operate more sustainably, such as replacing its material handling equipment (MHE). This includes a fleet of 75 gas-powered forklift trucks, which move cases of product around the site, replaced with units powered by lithium ion batteries, producing no carbon emissions in their day-to-day operation.
Vanessa Smith, director of Wakefield supply chain operations at Coca-Cola Europacific Partners, said: “The new ASRS warehouse ensures we continue expanding our production capabilities as we look to the future, and operate as efficiently and sustainably as possible. This follows on from the installation of our state-of-the-art canning line, which became operational this summer. In addition to improving the site capabilities of our lightweight cans, the new line and latest investments underscore our commitment to our Wakefield site and the 550-strong workforce who work here.”
Stephen Moorhouse, vice-president and general manager of Coca-Cola Europacific Partners (GB), added: “Wakefield offers a range of modern manufacturing jobs and sits at the heart of many of our latest manufacturing technologies. We’ve invested more than £100 million since 2019 to help us evolve operations on site and further support the local economy.”
The site has received £103m in investment since 2019 to enhance efficiencies and operate more sustainably, including the replacement of its material handling equipment / Picture: Coca-Cola Europacific Partners
