Keeping in line with Coca Cola’s plan to invest $ 5 billion in its India operations till 2020, Guy Wollaert, Senior Vice Persident & Chief Technical Officer of the Atlanta- based beverage giant inaugurated Coca Cola India’s 58th manufacturing plant in the country on Thursday.
Backed with a huge investment, Coca Cola India has now set its focus to become one of the largest markets for its parent company. Venkatesh Kini, Deputy Business Unit President of Coca Cola India and South West Asia said, “ten years back India was the 19th largest market for Coca Cola from where we rose to the 7th rank. Now our focus is to become the 5th largest market by 2020 and this will happen through these investments.”
“Our investments would be done in existing and new plants, logistics, new innovations and infrastructure,” he further added.
He also said that apart from investing towards ramping up of its manufacturing, investments would also be made towards their agriculture and distribution segments. As a strategy towards achieving their goal, the company plans to increase bottling lines, adding new bottling plants, enhancing back-end chain infrastructure.
The Mathura based plant has been set up by Brindavan Agro Industries, Coca Cola India’s franchise bottler. The company has invested Rs135 crore in the new state of the art plant through which they plan to cater demands from nine districts of Western Uttar Pradesh and some parts of Madhya Pradesh. The plant currently has two bottling lines, one of sparkling PET line and one of sparkling glass bottle line. Both the lines have the capacity to produce 600 bottles each per minute. In future, if required, the plant has enough space to accommodate two more production lines.
Commenting on their 58th plant, Guy Wollaert said it would not only catalyse economic growth, but will also contribute to the development of local community. “This new plant reflects our belief in India as a strategic growth market with immense potential,” he added.
In 2013, this is the second plant which the company has added to its production network. Recently, Coca Cola India inaugurated Greater Noida based plant in which the company invested Rs140 crore.