Coca-Cola Europacific Partners (CCEP) is closing several production and logistics sites across Germany.
In a statement issued yesterday (1 October), the Coca-Cola bottling giant said it would be is shutting its production and logistics facility in Cologne.
Production at the plant will halt on 31 March 2025, with 289 out of the total 602 employees affected. Remaining staff are to be relocated to "other sites".
The group is also closing its logistics sites in Neumünster, Berlin-Hohenschönhausen, Bielefeld and Memmingen.
Coca-Cola operates four manufacturing plants in western German including Dorsten, Mönchengladbach and Bad Neuenahr. With two lines, CCEP's Cologne facility is the smallest of the western production sites.
CCEP’s German restructuring will see 505 job cuts in total, with 179 roles going at its logistics sites.
Some 37 roles are also to be cut in its specialist business process and technology, people and culture, sales operations and sales support functions. The Fanta brewer said that it intends to “streamline” these specialist departments by “combining tasks and simplifying processes”.
“The changes in beverage logistics in recent years are continuing: large retail partners are increasingly switching from direct delivery to delivery via central warehouses. Smaller customers are increasingly ordering via beverage wholesalers,” a Coca-Cola spokesperson said.
Some 207 staff roles will be relocated to other sites in Germany. All the facility closures are expected to take place in 2025.
“We are aware that the planned changes will be very painful for the employees affected. This makes it all the more important to us to implement all the intended changes in a socially responsible and transparent manner,” CCEP Germany VP of customer service & supply chain Tilmann Rothhammer said.
“We have carefully considered the plans and weighed up the pros and cons. However, the planned changes are necessary to make our company more efficient and adapt it to market requirements so that we can continue to be competitive in the future.”
Germany’s Food, Beverages and Catering Union (NGG) has hit out at the closures. NGG stated that Coca-Cola Germany was “relying less and less” on regional value creation and was instead outsourcing work to external service providers.
“Coca-Cola earns an enormous amount of money worldwide, but 500 jobs are being destroyed in Germany as a result of the renewed site closures. This gives the impression that this is not a matter of economic necessity, but pure greed for profit at the expense of employees,” NGG deputy chairman Freddy Adjan said in a statement.
“With each further closure, Coca-Cola is moving further away from its own promise of being a global brand that is produced and delivered regionally. This is being made more and more absurd with each site closure.”
In Germany, for the six months ended 28 June 2024, CCEP posted revenue of €1.54bn, up 5.6%, driven by price increases implemented in Q3 2023.
Its volumes dipped 2.8% in Europe versus H1 2023 to 1.27 billion unit cases. The group attributed the decline to poor weather.
Revenues were up in Europe 2.4% on the year prior at €7.2bn ($7.86bn). Operating profits were relatively flat, slipping down 0.6% on a reported basis to €882m, but on a comparable basis, these increased 6% year-on-year to €979m.
Total volumes for the group were up 13.8% to 1.85 billion unit-cases, while revenues increased 9.5% to €9.82bn. Operating profits declined 2.4% on a reported basis to €1.14bn and grew 11.2% on a comparable basis to €1.29bn.
