[ad_1]
The massive Coca-Cola processing plant in Elmwood — which towers 12 stories over the surrounding Elmwood industrial park and handles some 750 different Coke-owned products — is getting an upgrade.
The plant’s Birmingham-based owner, Coca-Cola Bottling Company United, is investing $18 million in a new storage and retrieval system that will enable the facility —which is the largest Coca-Cola plant in Louisiana — to increase by nearly 30% the amount of Coke products, waters, sports drinks and other non-alcoholic beverages that it processes, bottles, stores and distributes.
The investment will not add new square footage to the plant or new jobs, but will increase the facility’s capacity by reconfiguring space inside the building and installing a new automated system.
As products come off the production line, the new system will place them onto a laser-guided vehicle, which will transport them to a crane that will place them in their appropriate slot in the 12-story tower, which spans the length of a football field.
The system will also be able to retrieve products when it’s time to load them onto a truck for delivery.
When the installation is complete later next year, the Elmwood facility, which serves some 5,000 retail customers across the Greater New Orleans area, will be able to increase the amount of products it processes and handles from 14,000 pallets, or roughly 1 million cases, to 18,000 pallets, or 1.3 million cases.
“We will be able to store more and produce more so that will enable us to be more efficient,” said Scott McCallister, West Region vice president of Coca-Cola United.
Covering the market
The expansion is the latest of several Coca-Cola United has made in recent years in Louisiana, which is one of six states where it does business. Since 2019, the company has invested some $75 million at facilities across the state, including $42 million in Baton Rouge, $15 million in Lafayette and now $18 million in Harahan.
Coca-Cola United is the third-largest Coca-Cola bottler in the U.S. and, like other bottlers, buys the patented Coca-Cola syrup from parent company Coca-Cola U.S.A. in Atlanta, which also handles all marketing and promotions.
Coca-Cola, which was created more than 125 years ago in Atlanta, has always done well in the Deep South and both New Orleans and Louisiana are among its strongest markets. According to McCallister, the company’s products dominate every category — carbonated beverages, sports drinks, energy drinks, waters, among others — in which they compete.
In the carbonated beverages category, or what is more colloquially thought of as “soft drinks,” four out of every five bottles sold locally is a Coke-branded product.
“We have a lot of loyal customers in New Orleans, that’s for sure,” said McCallister.
Perhaps surprisingly, Coca-Cola-branded carbonated drinks make up only about 20% of all products made at the local facility.
The plant also produces other carbonated drinks like Sprite, Dr. Pepper, Fanta, Schwepps; as well as waters and sports drinks like Dasani, Smart Water, Body Armor, Vitamin Water, Topo Chico and Powerade; teas like Gold Peak and Fuze; energy drinks like Monster, and dozens of other products that are less well known, each with its own flavors.
Many of those categories and products directly compete with traditional Coke-branded products and have stolen market share in recent years from the flagship cola and its sister products, as health-conscious consumers have cut back on sugary carbonated drinks in favor of flavored waters and hydration drinks.
Coca-Cola, at a corporate level, has responded by acquiring brands in all competing categories.
“We want to be the preferred supplier for any non-alcoholic beverage and to be the leader in every one of those categories,” McCallister said.
Trends for 2024
Part of the expansion at Elmwood will enable the local facility to roll out more new products and flavors more quickly. Roughly 100 new products will be introduced in the new year. Some will be variations on existing themes — new flavors of Dr. Pepper, for instance, which found the strawberries-and-cream flavor it introduced in 2023 to be so successful, it’s introducing additional flavors in 2024.
Other products will be entirely new concepts, likely in the energy and sports drinks categories, which are the fastest-growing categories.
“There is a lot of innovation in sports drinks, what we call rapid hydration for performance athletes, and new flavors and packaging within the sports category,” he said. “Coke has more Coke extensions coming and sparkling water is a rapidly growing new category so we will be launching more of those.”
[ad_2]
Source link
