Soft drink company Coke Canada is launching a $34 million investment in its Lachine bottling plant.
Posted at 2:13 p.m.
This investment will be used for the installation and commissioning within a year of a new production line for beverages in cans and 32-unit packaging.
The three existing lines at the Lachine plant produce beverages in plastic bottles and cans, but they are limited to packages of 12 to 24 units.
Meanwhile, the 32-can packages for Coke Canada’s market in Quebec and the Maritimes come from its plant in Brampton, Ontario.
According to Coke Canada, this addition of production capacity at the Lachine plant will serve to “meet growing consumer demand” and “the positive momentum it is experiencing in the east of the country, particularly in Quebec. »
This is also a second multi-million dollar investment at the Lachine plant since the sale of Coke Canada to Canadian investors made by the American parent company in 2018, for an amount then estimated at 800 million.
Coke Canada manufactures and packages some 120 products in seven different formats on the three production lines at its Lachine plant.
It produces the equivalent of 25 million cases (of 24 units) per year of soft drinks under the Coca-Cola, Canada Dry, Sprite, Fresca and A&W brands.
For several years now, the Lachine plant has been producing soft drinks in transparent PET-type plastic bottles, which are more easily recyclable into new plastic bottles.
As for the workforce, in the Montreal region, Coke Canada employs 150 people at its Lachine plant and just over 400 people at its sales and distribution center located in the east of the city.
“We are actively recruiting to fill several vacant positions in Lachine and Montreal, even before the addition of a fourth production line at the Lachine plant,” said Erika Tremblay, Vice-President of Eastern Canada. (Quebec and the Maritimes) at Coke Canada, during an interview with The Press.
Coke Canada establishments in Lachine and Montreal operate 24 hours a day, five to six days a week to serve 9,700 commercial establishments in the metropolitan area, and nearly 20,000 throughout Quebec and the Maritime provinces, to Newfoundland.
The Eastern Canadian market under the direction of Mme Tremblay accounts for approximately one-quarter (25%) of Coke Canada’s total sales.
Nationally, Coke Canada has some 5,700 employees in its network of five production plants and some fifty regional sales and distribution centres.