COCA-COLA INAUGURATED A NEW PRODUCTION LINE IN HUNGARY
In the presence of Péter Szijjártó, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Coca-Cola HB Hungary C inaugurated its newest, ultramodern production line in Dunaharaszti. The new line and the new production hall on 3,000 square meters were completed with an investment of about EUR 23 million (HUF 8.7 billion). The country’s largest soft drink bottler has increased its production capacity by 30 percent with this development, launched in spring 2023, responding to growing domestic and international market demand. Thanks to the investment, the country’s largest soft drink manufacturer has taken another big step towards making the Dunaharaszti plant the leading Central European manufacturing base of the Coca-Cola HBC Group.
Coca-Cola HBC Hungary has been continuously developing its manufacturing activities since 1996 and has invested more than HUF 135 billion in domestic operations over the past 27 years. The company manufactures products in Dunaharaszti and Zalaszentgrót and has 8 logistics distribution centres, including Hungary largest warehouse in the food industry. Coca-Cola HBC Hungary pays special attention to the development and modernization of the production unit in Dunaharaszt, as not only the entire Hungarian market, but also 17 export countries are supplied with products from here.
The design of the new production line, which is intended to serve the growing domestic and foreign demand at a high level, started in 2020, and following approval in 2022, construction started in February 2023, including logistics and other infrastructure developments intended to support increasing production volumes.
LÁSZLÓ BÉKÉFI, MANAGING DIRECTOR OF COCA-COLA HBC HUNGARY:
“We are proud that within the Coca-Cola HBC Group we were able to bring the most modern production technology available today to Dunaharaszti and with this new significant investment we can contribute to the growth of the Hungarian economy. We are committed to the domestic market and are working to support our business activities with continuous improvements in all areas of the value chain. In recent years, we have implemented several investments that bring us closer to establishing a modern manufacturing base in Dunaharaszti that meets the expectations of the 21st century.”
Together with the new hall and production line inaugurated on Tuesday, there are now a total of eight production lines in Dunaharaszti, producing boxed, bottled, Bag in Box, carbonated and non-carbonated products. The new line is fully automated, and thanks to technological developments, unlike before, all tasks are performed by one production line. When changing the packaging to be produced, the bottle blowing machine is retrofitted by a robot, reducing the time to change between formats from 150 minutes to 35 minutes. The high-performance, state-of-the-art production line will produce small and large packages of Coca-Cola, Fanta, Sprite and Kinley carbonated soft drinks, bottling up to 36,000 1.75 litre bottles per hour.
Coca-Cola HBC Hungary pays special attention to the use of state-of-the-art technologies that increase production efficiency and reduce energy and water consumption in support of sustainability goals. The Dunaharaszti plant uses 100 percent electricity from renewable sources, and the production of one litre of finished product currently requires 30 percent less energy and 20 percent less water than in 2014. The commissioning of the new production line is expected to further reduce energy and water consumption at a similar rate.
In 2022, within the Coca-Cola HBC Group, the Hungarian company was the first to introduce artificial intelligence-controlled robotic technology into its warehousing processes, and in 2022, thanks to a packaging technology innovation, it replaced the multipack packaging of soft drinks in aluminum cans with 100% recyclable cardboard packaging, which reduces plastic consumption by a total of 230 tons per year.
Original article HERE
Image source: hu.coca-colahellenic.com