Leading soft drinks company Britvic announced today that it will create c.80 new jobs at its manufacturing site in Rugby and invest in three new production lines at the site.
The newly created jobs include technical operators, engineers and team leaders. The site currently employs 176 people.
Britvic is investing more than £100milllion in the Rugby site, as part of a broader £240m three-year investment programme in GB designed to step-change the company’s manufacturing capability. As part of the investment in Rugby, Britvic has recently installed three new can lines, and groundworks have started for a new on-site warehouse and aseptic line (which manufactures preservative-free drinks) which will improve logistics planning and reduce road miles, helping the company to reduce its carbon footprint.
The new can lines are amongst the fastest in the Europe, collectively producing 6,000 cans per minute. The state-of-the-art design has led to a reduction in waste, significantly increased production, and gives greater flexibility meaning cans can now be made from aluminium or steel on the same line. By April, our steel can formats will move to aluminium cans removing 8,000 tonnes of metal annually.
This increased capability is helping the business to continue to innovate. For example, Purdey’s, a premium, natural energy drink made with natural juice and botanicals but no caffeine, taurine or added sugar, is now being made in slimline aluminium cans as well as glass bottles, adding to the success of the brand which increased revenue by nearly 30% in 2017 and has continued to grow its share of the energy category in the first quarter of 2018.
Clive Hooper, Chief Supply Chain Officer at Britvic, commented: “Rugby has been a home to Britvic for more than 30 years. The site has undergone significant change in that time; from the 80s when we manually produced drinks, through to the 90s when we moved to full automation, to our position today as the proud owners of some of the fastest can lines in Europe. At every stage, we have worked as a team to drive innovative change and I am looking forward to welcoming new team members to Rugby over the next 12 months as we continue to invest in our Rugby site.”
Britvic’s sustainability strategy - ‘A Healthier Everyday’ - is fully integrated into the company’s investment in manufacturing programme. It focuses on three key areas including:
- Healthier People: helping consumers to make healthier choices and live healthier lives (94% of Britvic’s own brands contain less than 5g of added sugar and will be below or exempt from the Soft Drinks Industry Levy)
- Healthier Communities: helping our employees and communities to thrive
- Healthier Planet: helping to secure our planet’s future
The ‘Healthier Planet’ element sets out Britvic’s commitment to help secure the planet’s future, ensuring that resources are used responsibly and the natural world is protected. The focus is on resource efficiency, minimising the environmental impact of packaging and operating a sustainable supply chain.
Recent milestones:
- 100% of Britvic’s plastic bottles are recyclable
- Recent investment in new bottling lines eliminated over 300 tonnes of plastic bottle packaging in GB
- 99% of global manufacturing waste generated was diverted from landfill
- It achieved a 5% reduction in carbon emissions relative to production compared to 2016
- Water ratio (water consumption relative to production) from 2016 was maintained despite the commissioning of new lines
- Britvic was shortlisted for the 2017 GreenFleet Awards in the ‘Private Sector Fleet of the Year’ category for its work to promote the use of alternative fuel vehicles across its fleet. Work included installing charging points across its sites in Great Britain, and actively engaging with employees to demonstrate the total cost/benefit of hybrid vehicles.
2020 Goals:
- Reduce carbon emissions relative to production across Britvic’s global manufacturing sites by 15% vs 2016 baseline (5% emissions reduction achieved in 2017)
- Achieve a water ratio (water consumption relative to production) of 1.4 across its global manufacturing operations (water ratio was 2.15 in 2017)
- Achieve zero waste to landfill across its global manufacturing sites (99% in 2017)
- Reduce the amount of materials used across all packaging formats, introduce recycled PET (rPET) into the GB portfolio at 15% content (300 tonnes of plastic packaging eliminated in GB in 2017).
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