CCE Wakefield
CCE Wakefield is a large soft drinks factory in West Yorkshire owned by Coca-Cola Enterprises UK; it is the largest soft-drinks factory in Europe.
History
Construction
In March 1988 Schweppes and Coca-Cola announced that they would jointly build the largest soft drinks factory in Europe, to cost £55m. It would be built by 1991, with 470 employees. The joint venture of Schweppes and Coca Cola had UK sales of £450m.Hoval boilers were installed, three of 4000kW, made in Newark-on-Trent. There was a £300000 order for 26 stainless steel vessels for Wincanton Engineering of Sherborne. Most of the plant was designed in Uxbridge. Nacanco operated the canning plant.
It was built in 1989 at the Wakefield 41 Business Park in Outwood.
Opening
In April 1988 a single-union agreement was signed with the Amalgamated Engineering Union. In August 1988 the Transport and General Workers' Union threatened action at Coca Cola's 26 plants in the UK, if the agreement went ahead. 900 TGWU workers at Coca Cola plants started a work to rule, and an overtime ban in August 1988.It was officially opened on 2 October 1989. In 1989 it could produce 4,000 cans per minute; by late 1990 it was making 6,000 cans per minute. The Lingwall Gate Action Group claimed that the canning facility made air pollution. 220,000 trees were planted.
From the five years after 2009, Coca-Cola invested over £100m in the plant, and £240m had been invested at the site before 2009. The main office of CCEP is in Milton Keynes.
Coca-Cola has six factories in the UK.
Visits
- Prince Richard, Duke of Gloucester visited at 10.30am on 22 October 1990
- The site was visited by David Cameron, when Prime Minister, in 2010 and June 2014.
Production
The site produces 6,000 cans of soft drinks per minute, which is 100 per second, and up to 2,200 PET bottles a minute ; this works out to up to one billion litres of soft drink a year. The factory can produce 40,000 PET bottles an hour.Next door is a factory of Rexam, that produces the metal cans. The plant sources its water from the nearby Ardsley Reservoir which is to the west.
Production in the UK
It produces a third of the UK's requirement.Coca-Cola had wanted to build a similar plant for south of England. Swindon rejected their plans on 27 February 1990. In October 1990 Coca-Cola decided to open a 54-acre site in Northampton, but never did.
Coca-Cola had a four acre distribution centre at Winwick Quay near Warrington; this was sold in 1993 and moved distribution to Wakefield.