Coca-Cola Europacific Partners says its new canning line will process up to 1700 cans every minute, help meet growing demand for canned beverages, allow better distribution service in the southern states, and advance the company's sustainability and gender equality goals.
The $43.7 million Moorabbin plant means CCEP can scale local can production and service Victoria, Tasmania, and South Australia more efficiently.
CCEP vice president and general manager of Australia, the Pacific and Indonesia, Peter West, said the facility reflected the company’s “value-chain approach” to operations.
“[We] continually assess the entire lifecycle of our products to unlock ways we can make, move, and sell beverages more sustainably, whilst ensuring we’re continually driving growth for our valued customers.
“This new can line at Moorabbin allows us to make a larger range of canned beverages from across our portfolio of non-alcoholic and alcoholic brands locally in Victoria, meaning our products are closer to the end-consumer. This minimises freight movements and, in turn, helps to reduce carbon emissions,” West said.
The line makes up to 1700 cans per minute in slimline 250ml cans, 1500 cans per minute for 375ml cans, and can also fill 500ml packs. There are 37 different beverage varieties, including Coca-Cola No Sugar, Sprite, Mount Franklin Lightly Sparkling, Canadian Club & Dry, Monster, and Mother Energy, that will be processed at the plant, which will run 24/7.
CCEP project lead David Holden said, “Moorabbin is a significant capability shift to provide a diverse range of products for customers across Victoria and interstate. It introduces leading technology available on the market at the moment and has unlocked a number of sustainability benefits.”
The plant uses less water than existing can lines and CCEP estimates it will save more than six Olympic-sized swimming pools of water every year.
In September, the company announced it was working with water technology firm Ecolab to advance its water stewardship at its Richlands facility in Queensland and Northmead plant in Sydney.
The company also expects its energy use to drop by around 160,000 kilowatt hours each year, mainly because the equipment can fill cans at room temperature; eliminating the energy normally used to cool liquid as part of the filling process.
Orlando Rodriguez, Vice President of Supply Chain – Australia, New Zealand, and Pacific at Coca-Cola Europacific Partners, said: “The requirement to move product between states in a country as vast as Australia contributes to greenhouse gas emissions and reducing this is a challenging task, but it’s not impossible.
“Our continued investment in more efficient infrastructure at our facilities will play a role in helping us reach our net zero targets.”
CCEP also signed an eight-year Power Purchase Agreement with Alinta Energy in September, which includes large-scale generation certificates and 13,000 MWh a year of renewable electricity from the Yandin Wind Farm, 175km north of Perth.
West said, “CCEP is taking serious action to reduce our carbon footprint across our operations, and as a global business, we have set bold targets.
“Our partnership with Alinta Energy brings us a step closer to achieving our target of 100 per cent renewable electricity by 2025, which is one of the ways we’ll reach net zero by 2040.”
West also said the Moorabbin site has seen the company improve its gender equality goals by offering career opportunities for women in the supply chain.
“More than 50 per cent of the team that work on the new can line are women, and we’ve increased female representation across our total Victorian supply chain workforce by more than three per cent over the past year,” he said.
Refreshed Mentone Distribution Centre
Near to Moorabbin is CCEP’s Mentone Distribution Centre (DC), which has installed a $17.4 million Automated Storage and Retrieval System (ASRS).
The ASRS has 12,000 additional pallet spaces to ensure it can support Moorabbin’s increased can production and the efficient dispatch of product orders in Australia’s southern states.
“Combined, the new infrastructure at Moorabbin and Mentone allows us to slash our inter-state freight by more than one million kilometres per year, cutting CO2 emissions by 830 tonnes.
“These two major infrastructure projects work hand-in-glove to help us uphold our commitment great people, great service and great beverages, done sustainably and we couldn’t be more pleased to see them live and operational,” said Rodriguez.
