Coca-Cola Amatil opens expanded beverage plant

Coca-Cola Amatil has opened a $165 million expansion of its bottling and warehouse facility in Richlands, with the new plant capable of producing more than 90 million unit cases of drinks each year for national and export markets.

The new Coca-Cola Amatil campus is the company’s largest Australian manufacturing plant and will produce an extensive range of sparkling and still beverages, juices, teas, alcohol and dairy drinks.

The site will be the exclusive Australian bottling and distribution centre for Coke’s century-old ‘contour’ glass bottles. It will also make all of Amatil’s Australian dairy range, including all of Australia’s Barista Brothers drinks, and continue to export Barista Brothers and Powerade to New Zealand.

The expanded facility also includes a new state-of-the-art 30,000 m² distribution centre, with capacity for 45,000 pallets. Benefits of the new centre include lower operating costs, reduced materials handling and fewer local truck movements.

At the official opening on 2 October, Queensland Premier Palaszczuk said the Coca-Cola Amatil campus demonstrated the strength of the Queensland economy, excellent transport and shipping links and cost-effective access to consumer markets.

“Queensland has gained an international reputation as a great place to do business, which is why Coca-Cola Amatil has developed this $165 million vote of confidence in Queensland,” she said.

The Group Managing Director of Coca-Cola Amatil, Alison Watkins, said the company was proud to be a local manufacturer and distributor, and to have headquartered so much of its production in Richlands.

“This site was selected after a nationwide review which identified that we needed to modernise and invest to maintain competitiveness in the market,” she said.

“Of all the locations we looked at, Richlands offered the strongest combination of road and port access, efficiency in production, access to east-coast markets and room to grow. We also had great engagement with the Queensland Government, which was keen to support manufacturing investment and jobs.

“It’s great to call this site home, and we’ll be looking to grow local production even further over time.”

The Richlands site represents a substantial increase in Coca-Cola Amatil’s Australian beverages bottling capacity, following recent encouraging signs in revenue and volume sales.

The site also includes the latest processing technology — a SAP Extended Warehouse Management (EWM) system. As a single integrated processing system, it increases visibility of operations and better matches supply with demand.

A new glass production line at the site has already been commissioned, with expanded dairy capability to come online by Q2 2019.