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Coca-Cola Amatil New Zealand

Thursday 31 March 2011, 1:03PM

By Coca-Cola Amatil (NZ) Ltd

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CHRISTCHURCH

Coca-Cola Amatil (NZ) Ltd has committed to building a state-of-the-art $15million bottle manufacturing and filling operation at its Woolston Plant in Christchurch.

This significant capital investment was originally approved before the second devastating earthquake struck Christchurch on February 22.

After careful consideration if its options, the company has made the decision to proceed with the new facility, which will manufacture beverages for the entire South Island, and some for the North.

The Woolston plant was significantly damaged in the recent earthquake.

Structural repair work is currently underway, with commissioning of the new Blowfill technology scheduled to commence in 4 to 6 weeks.

Coca-Cola Amatil Managing Director George Adams says “this decision is a major vote of confidence in the future of Christchurch as an economic hub.

“We are pleased we can make this early commitment to our work force of more than 140 people, our customers and the communities in which we operate.

“We feel privileged that in a modest way we can contribute to the re-emergence of Christchurch as one of the country’s premier cities.”

Blowfill technology ‘blows’ a PET bottle while on the production line from a ‘pre-form’ PET resin, and then automatically fills it with beverage. The production line will produce up to 16,000 filled bottles an hour.

BACKGROUNDER



COCA-COLA AMATIL NEW ZEALAND LIMITED



Coca-Cola Amatil (NZ) Ltd (CCANZ) is a kiwi business that employs 1100 people from Whangarei to Invercargill. We have five production plants located in Auckland (x2), Putaruru, and Christchurch (x2) and three distribution centres – Auckland, Christchurch and Palmerston North.

CCANZ is a bottler for The Coca-Cola Company (TCCC) and part of the Coca-Cola Amatil group headquartered in Sydney and listed on the ASX with operations in five countries – New Zealand, Australia, Fiji, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea.

CCANZ manufactures, sells and distributes a diversified product portfolio including carbonated soft drinks, water, sports and energy drinks, fruit juice, coffee and packaged ready-to-eat fruit and vegetable products. In addition to CCA’s own range of product, we manufacture and distribute trademarks of The Coca-Cola Company (TCCC).

Our New Zealand product portfolio includes well known brands Coca-Cola, Coke Zero, Diet Coke, Powerade, Pump, Kiwi Blue, Fanta, L&P, Sprite, Schweppes and Keri Juice. CCANZ also distributes four popular premium beer labels; Peroni, Grolsch, Pilsner Urquell and Miller.

The Coca-Cola Company (TCCC) is a global business which partners with 300 bottling businesses worldwide. TCCC has approximately 30% shareholding in CCA and manufactures and sells concentrates beverage bases and syrups to bottlers such as CCANZ.

OUR CHRISTCHURCH OPERATIONS

Our Woolston site was opened by The Right Hon. Norman Kirk in 1974. It was then owned by Southern Bottlers with CCANZ (then called Oasis Industries) taking ownership in 1982.

At Woolston we have two production lines, one of which produces carbonated soft drinks (CSD) the other produces postmix syrup.

The CSD line is soon to be upgraded to new Blowfill technology, producing PET bottles at a rate of 16,000 bottles per hour. At our Keri Juice plant in Hornby we make Powerade, Keri Juice and Keri Kids.

From Christchurch we distribute all 300+ product lines direct to 4000 customers throughout the South Island via a fleet of owner driver contracted trucks. Product made at both plants predominantly service our South Island customers. The previous CSD line at Woolston made 2 million physical cases per annum, with the new Blowfill technology we will produce approximately the same volume but the process will be faster and more efficient. Keri Juice plant produces 1 million cases per annum.

We have 60 staff in our Christchurch sales team across vending, coffee, beer, grocery, petro and route divisions. The total number of staff across both locations is 140. We have received 2 awards in last 18 months for our sustainability initiatives celebrating our 99% recycling rate for materials that come onto our two Christchurch sites.



BLOW FILL TECHNOLOGY - KEY BENEFITS

1. Faster
2. More efficient
3. Sustainable – better for the environment
This multimillion dollar investment into technology, called ‘blow-fill’ enables the in-house manufacture of PET bottles from ‘pre-forms’ of PET resin. PET bottles will be blown in-line, filled and capped in a single manufacturing line process. The ability to manufacture bottles means we are able to use significantly less PET resin. CCANZ will be able to deliver the lightest weight PET beverage bottle manufactured in New Zealand. All carbonated soft drink products (L&P, Schweppes, Deep Spring and all Coca-Cola trademark brands) will be from 10-15% lighter (phased in from mid 2011). The bottle caps will also be shorter, again, saving resin. These lightweight bottles will save 151 tonnes of PET resin in the first year alone at our Christchurch plant. This project will deliver cost and environmental savings to CCANZ by eliminating empty bottle storage, handling and transport costs as well as achieving a reduction in the amount of PET resin used to manufacture the bottles.



OUR CONTRIBUTION FOLLOWING THE CHRISTCHURCH EARTHQUAKE ON FEB 22ND

Despite extensive damage and significant stock loss at our Woolston plant and storage facility of approximately 450,000 cases, we were able to salvage 1200 cases of bottled water which we immediately made available to Civil Defence and Emergency Services.

On the evening of the 22nd February, our Auckland Supply Chain team immediately despatched 10 double truck and trailer units for Christchurch packed with bottled water. We also flew 500 cases of bottled water via the Airforce for Christchurch Hospital. We continue to work with Civil Defence to assist them with their water and hydration needs for those still working on earthquake recovery and repair.

To date we have donated 200,000 bottles of water and in addition have supplied further product at a reduced cost. CCANZ staff nationwide have contributed individually through a company matched donation to the Red Cross Earthquake Appeal Fund which totals $22,000.



Organisational structure

· Managing Director Coca-Cola Amatil New Zealand and Fiji - George Adams
· Chief Financial Officer New Zealand and Fiji – Bruce McEwen
· General Manager Sales and Customer Service – Chris Litchfield
· General Manager Supply Chain – John Truscott
· Chief Information Officer – Graham Robertson
· General Manager HR and Corporate Affairs – Kate Daly
· Manager Legal and Commercial – Caroline Beaumont
· Corporate Affairs Manager – Suzy Clarkson