Coca-Cola European Partners operates Europe's largest beverage factory in Wakefield, UK. In the midst of the coronavirus crisis, KHS has installed two new bottling lines there.
The northern English town of Wakefield has been home to Europe's largest soft drinks factory since 1989. Here, in one of five British production sites, Coca-Cola European Partners (CCEP) fills up to 10,000 cans and up to 1,800 PET bottles of soft drinks per minute - a total of 45 per cent of the total volume that CCEP produces in the UK.
Largest beverage factory in Europe
The plant has a total of eight filling lines, five of which fill cans with a volume of 330 and 500 millilitres. The world's largest independent Coca-Cola bottler is cooperating with KHS as its technology partner: the Dortmund-based machine and systems manufacturer is responsible for four of the five can fillers and for Two complete can lines responsible. These two lines 4 and 5 were installed and put into operation within a year.
Two KHS Innofill Can DVD can fillers were installed at Coca-Cola European Partners in Wakefield within just one year. (Image: KHS Group)
The centrepiece of both systems is the KHSCan filler Innofill Can DVD - here with an output of up to 120,000 cans per hour.
Coca-Cola increases capacity
"The aim of our investment was, of course, to increase capacity," says Michail SkarpathiotakisSenior Project Manager at the CCEP headquarters in Uxbridge near London. However, the focus was primarily on Cardboard multipackswhich are available in a variety of formats from packs of four to 30. Against the backdrop of the coronavirus crisis, in which people are spending more time at home, Sales of these containers are currently growing at double-digit rates. The Innopack Kisters wrap-around shrink packers, which are integrated into the two lines, had to be correspondingly powerful.
On the right is the KHS Innopro Paramix C blending system, with the empty cans being fed to the filler at the front and the filled and sealed cans being transported to the packer on the left. (Picture: KHS Group)
The beverage can enjoys above-average popularity in the UK: whereas in Germany, PET bottles account for 81 per cent of the CCEP packaging mix and the can only has a share of five per cent, the can reaches 35 per cent of the British population (PET bottles: 46 %). This makes them the European leader in cans.
(Image: KHS Group)
"Purchasing behaviour has also changed when it comes to secondary packaging: We have noticed that the proportion of fully enclosed cardboard packaging is growing - at the expense of shrink-wrapped packs." Kerry Morgan-SmithOperations Manager at the Wakefield site
Installation in lockdown
The installation started one week after the complete lockdown was imposed in England. Under the difficult circumstances, the project was also a major technical challenge: "Together with KHS, we managed it, two lines within just 12 months to install," says Morgan-Smith. "We've never done this before - it usually takes at least three to four years between projects like this.
