Coca-Cola Europacific Partners plans to inject £42.3m ($53m) into a manufacturing site in the UK town of Wakefield in a bid to boost storage capacity.
The sum will go towards the construction of an Automated Storage Retrieval System (ASRS) warehouse at the Wakefield location.
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The project is expected to increase warehouse capacity by more than 100%. With the computer-managed warehouse system, capacity is expected to go up from 29,000 pallets to 58,500 pallets.
It is also expected to cut 18,500 vehicle journeys on the road a year, equating to 441,000 km per year, Coca-Cola Europacific Partners said.
Construction of the ASRS is expected to be complete in “two and a half years”, the company added.
Just Drinks has asked Coca-Cola Europacific Partners to confirm whether any new roles have been created with the investment.
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By GlobalDataAround 550 employees work at the Wakefield plant, which the company says produces roughly a third of its volumes for the Great Britain (GB) market. The site is said to be its largest soft drinks plant by volume in Europe.
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.
The ASRS investment comes after a £31m cash injection last year into a new canning line at Wakefield.
The line, which opened in July, makes around 2,000 cans a minute. It also offers “additional production capabilities” for the company’s lightweight 330ml cans used for brands such as Coca-Cola, Diet Coke, Fanta, and Sprite.
The group said it has invested around £103m in the Wakefield site since 2019 “to enhance efficiencies and operate more sustainably”.
In 2021, the Coke bottler injected £11m into replacing its manufacturing handling equipment (MHE) fleet across its UK manufacturing sites, as part of its wider aim to hit net zero emissions by 2040.
At Wakefield, the cash was used to replace some of the MHE on-site with gas-powered forklift trucks.
Aside from Wakefield, the business’s other production sites in the UK include Sidcup and Edmonton in Greater London, Milton Keynes in Buckinghamshire, Morpeth in Northumberland and East Kilbride in Scotland.
