Coca-Cola European Partners to Invest Over €500 Million in 2019
Coca-Cola European Partners, the world’s largest Coca-Cola bottler, will invest over €500 million in 2019, as part of an ongoing multi-year €1.5 billion investment programme. The programme focuses on delivering more for customers by investing in new technology, supply chain capabilities and coolers.
Damian Gammell, chief executive of Coca-Cola European Partners, says: “We’re investing in key areas of the business to make it easier for customers to do business with us, and to offer consumers a wider range of great products. Last year our targeted investment programme helped to create €8.7 billion in value for customers – nearly €600 million more than 2017.”
The company plans to make it easier for its customers to do business by developing and investing in new digital solutions. This includes investment in: mobile sales tools which not only improve the customer experience but also increase productivity and optimise sell time; new business analytics capabilities to improve promotions and forecasting with customers; and expanding digital services for customers, such as Kollex, a recently established digital joint venture for the beverage wholesale trade and the away-from-home market in Germany.
The investment programme will also aim to boosting capabilities across Coca-Cola European Partners’ supply chain in order to service customers quickly and easily, and to support the company’s growing portfolio of drinks sustainably. Expenditure will include:
* New manufacturing lines in Halle, Mannheim, Barcelona, Seville, Ghent and Wakefield to provide consumers with a greater choice of products and packs;
* Increasing the amount of recycled plastic in products, such as the ongoing work with Ioniqa to transform hard to recycle plastic waste into high quality, food-grade PET;
* Increasing capacity for refillable glass bottles and trialling new routes to market, such as Coca-Cola European Partners’ new partnership with Loop and Carrefour in France for returnable and refillable glass.
Coca-Cola European Partners also plans to increase product availability by expanding its cold drink equipment, making it easier for consumers to find the company’s drinks on the go. This aspect of the investment programme will include: placing 69,000 more coolers in customers’ outlets in 2019; and better outlet targeting and segmentation through an expanded range of cooler sizes and types.
Coca-Cola European Partners has also announced the creation of an innovation investment programme.CCEP Ventures will focus solutions across customer experience and support, logistics and distribution, future packaging design and technology, prediction and pricing analytics
Damien Gammell explains: “Our business faces future disruptive trends that need innovative solutions and we need to adapt and learn quickly. CCEP Ventures will help us bring the best minds and ideas from the outside world into our business. It will help us find, fund and foster new solutions and scale with speed.”
Coca-Cola European Partners serves a consumer population of over 300 million across Western Europe, including Andorra, Belgium, continental France, Germany, Great Britain, Iceland, Luxembourg, Monaco, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain and Sweden.
