Coca-Cola Amatil has launched its new bottle preform and closure facility at Eastern Creek in Victoria, a $57 million investment in its beverage manufacturing capability.
Coca-Cola Amatil has launched its new bottle preform and closure facility at Eastern Creek in Victoria, a $57 million investment in its beverage manufacturing capability.
The new plant, which uses injection moulding technology, will manufacture plastic bottle caps and PET resin “preforms”, which are test-tube shaped moulds used to manufacture CCA’s PET plastic beverage bottles.
CCA said the Eastern Creek facility is the final stage in CCA’s vertical integration of its manufacturing facilities in Australia and New Zealand. Currently, CCA is investing $450 million in bottle self-manufacture, or “blow-fill” technology across the Group.
The technology will enable the company to make its own bottles on production lines within its facilities. Preforms are fed into the “blow-fill” machines and bottles are blown to CCA’s specific design, enabling the company to produce the lightest weight beverage bottles in Australia.
CCA’s new facility, which is being constructed within the Roussell Road, Eastern Creek site of the company’s $90 million automated Distribution Centre, will initially produce 1.4 billion preforms and 1.4 billion closures per year. The company said there is also room for expansion to meet future growth.
The preforms and closures will be used in “blow-fill” production lines in Australia, New Zealand and Fiji.
Terry Davis, CCA’s Group Managing Director, took part in a sod-turning ceremony on the site of the new facility.
“We are very pleased to be able to add this preform and closure facility to our significant investment in food and beverage manufacturing in Australia,” he said.
“This facility enables us to bring in-house all the intellectual property associated with innovation in design and light-weighting which was previously not exclusive to CCA. It also enables us to help reduce our carbon footprint because we are making bottles with approximately 20% less PET resin and reducing our need to transport preforms, closures and empty bottles from suppliers.
“As part of our Project Zero capital works program, this facility will help us deliver on our goal to develop the most efficient and customer-centric fast moving consumer goods supply chain in the country.”
Source: Coca-Cola Amatil