Coca-Cola Europacific Partners (CCEP) has announced a £42.3m investment in Wakefield manufacturing operations to support expanding its storage facilities.
Coca-Cola Europacific Partners (CCEP) has announced a planned investment of £42.3m in a new Automated Storage Retrieval System (ASRS) warehouse at its Wakefield site, Europe’s largest soft drinks plant by volume. The new ASRS will take two and a half years to build.
To maximise space, it will stand 38 metres tall and 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 reduce 18,500 vehicle journeys per year from the road, equating to 441,000 km per year.
“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,” said Vanessa Smith, Director of Wakefield Supply Chain Operations at Coca-Cola Europacific Partners.
“This follows from installing 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.”
This funding followed a £31m site investment for installing 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 has provided additional production capabilities for CCEP’s lightweight 330ml cans across brands, including Coca-Cola, Diet Coke, Coca-Cola Zero Sugar, Fanta, Dr Pepper, and Sprite.
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 £103 million 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 are used to 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.
Stephen Moorhouse, Vice President and General Manager of Coca-Cola Europacific Partners (GB), added that Wakefield offers a range of modern manufacturing jobs and is at the heart of many of our latest manufacturing technologies.
“We’ve invested more than £100million since 2019 to help us evolve operations on site and further support the local economy.”
