Coca-Cola European Partners, the European bottler of the soft drink giant, has promoted the largest factory in Europe in Seville with an expansion plan that will mean increasing its production capacity by 20%, which now amounts to 740 million liters year.
With an investment of 48 million euros, the plant in the Andalusian capital, which began construction in 1997, already has 190,000 square meters and a workforce of 450 employees, 240 of them in bottling. Thus, it is already among the top three by volume of production along with those of Wakefield and Edmonton, both in the United Kingdom.
The growth of Seville occurs in parallel to the closure of the Malaga factory, which has been carried out now, but which is part of a rationalization plan launched prior to the pandemic.
The plant, which already manufactures 25% of all Coca-Cola product consumption in Spain, has eleven production lines: three for glass, three for PET, three for cans, one for aseptic and one for syrup, and It has a state-of-the-art automated warehouse with a capacity for 100,000 pallets.
“The investments made in recent years have allowed us to increase the installed capacity to respond to our growth objectives and this year a new line of cans has also been added,” they explain in the company.
ecological bet
At the bottling plant, they also highlight that “policies are being implemented to minimize the impact that our activities have on the environment”, which has made it possible to reduce ratios such as water consumption or energy use, with improvements in the 21.4% and 31.7%, respectively, since 2010. “We want to continue along this line, making investments that allow our activities to have less and less impact on the environment”, pointed out Belén Barreiro, director of the plant.
Juan Bravo, Minister of Finance, Industry and Energy of the Junta de Andalucía, has visited the plant accompanied by Javier Fernández de los Ríos, mayor of the municipality; Belén Barreiro and Ignacio Calvo, director of institutional relations for Coca-Cola European Partners Iberia.
The director has toured the plant and has been able to see first-hand one of the most relevant Coca-Cola facilities in Western Europe. During the visit, the delegation had the opportunity to check the transformation that the plant is undergoing, which began in 2019 and will end in 2020.
Juan Bravo thanked Coca-Cola for its confidence in Seville. “The investment made in recent years in the La Rinconada plant as well as the expected growth in the coming years show that the Andalusian industry is in full swing and that large companies such as Coca Cola European Partners take Andalusia as a benchmark is key and demonstrates the wealth and potential of our land at an industrial level”, pointed out the Minister, who has valued the relationship between a company like Coca-Cola and its network of local suppliers as an example of collaboration while at the same time highlighting the participation of the company in different social projects through its corporate responsibility programs.
In turn, Belén Barreiro, director of the plant, took advantage of the meeting to maintain and strengthen Coca-Cola’s link with the territory: “We want to grow while maintaining our commitment to innovation and the territory, and Seville is key to doing so”. has stated during the visit.
For his part, Javier Fernández stressed that “Coca-Cola European Partners has become in its own right one of the most important companies in La Rinconada, since 22 years ago it paved the way for economic development in the municipality and is an entity reference”.
Reason for which he has assured that “from the City Council of La Rinconada we will continue to maintain, unequivocally, our predisposition to continue collaborating with Coca-Cola, in a mutual collaboration and understanding as until now”.
Local suppliers
Coca-Cola has always wanted to develop a sustained and sustainable business model, linked to the different local territories and with a special focus on consumers and customers. It is important for the company to work with suppliers that add value to the territory. In this sense, the Seville factory has 80% local suppliers.
Coca-Cola European Partners currently has 4,300 employees in Spain and, in addition to the Seville plant, has factories in La Coruña, Bilbao, Barcelona, Valencia and Tenerife. Apart from the closure of Malaga, in 2014 the company closed in Alicante, Asturias, Palma de Mallorca and Fuenlabrada.
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