Cola Enterprises Ltd (CCE) is demonstrating its commitment to manufacturing in Great Britain with a £50 million investment programme across three of its sites.

The investment at its Wakefield, East Kilbride and Sidcup manufacturing facilities forms a crucial part of CCE’s strategy to grow its business whilst reducing the impact of its operations on the environment, with sustainable innovation at the heart of the £50m programme.

Approximately £30m is being invested in a new automated warehouse at Wakefield – which is the largest and most environmentally efficient bottling plant of its kind in Europe; since 2009 the site has sent zero waste to landfill and has recently been certified to the challenging new international energy management standard, ISO 50001 by SGS United Kingdom Ltd. The new facility will increase Wakefield’s storage capacity by 102 per cent, which means that products manufactured at the site will be delivered to customers directly, rather than via external warehouses, saving approximately 500,000 road miles per year.

CCE is also investing £5.4m in a number of projects at its East Kilbride site. These include the introduction of a new energy-efficient bottle blowing facility that will produce lightweight PET bottles, reducing the amount of PET required, and a state-of-the-art packaging machine that removes the need to use cardboard in the packaging of multi-pack products.

An investment of £15m is boosting production capabilities at CCE’s Sidcup site; a new canning line will raise the site’s capacity by an additional 20 million cases of product per year. Innovations in the technology used on the new canning line mean that it will use 20 per cent less water, and it will help reduce the site’s carbon footprint by 610 tonnes in 2012.

Simon Baldry, Managing Director of Coca-Cola Enterprises in GB, said: “We are committed to manufacturing in this country and are proud that 95% of what we sell is made in Great Britain. The £50m investment is crucial to developing our business in line with our fundamental objective to grow more, while minimising our impact on the environment.”

This news comes as the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills is running a two-week long showcase of the importance of food and drink manufacturing to the economy in this country.

Business Secretary Vince Cable MP said: "I welcome Coca-Cola's new £50 million investment programme in green technology and their ambitions to grow UK production.

"Food and drink is the largest manufacturing sector in the UK, contributing some £20bn to the economy every year which is 15 per cent of our total manufacturing output. This investment is a major signal of confidence in the British economy."