Prague, 16 December 2020 – The crisis forced companies to optimize and seek out new opportunities The Coca-Cola system, too, needs to react to the crisis’ impact and optimize their resources and processes. However, Coca-Cola HBC, as well as the Coca-Cola Company, continue to invest in the development of plants, innovations, improvement of processes, and sustainability. Sensible investments are the only way to hold the position of a leader in the beverage field, and these also help local economies and the environment. Part of the investments is used for the renewal of natural resources, such as water treatment or replacement of Diesel engines with natural gas or plug-in hybrid engines. In the last two years, the Coca-Cola system also purchased the Natura production plant in Teplice nad Meturjí, has been building a fully-automated warehouse in Kyje, and expanded its product portfolio with plant-based drinks. During the Covid crisis, it significantly supported frontline workers - hospitals, care providers, retirement houses, and the Czech and Slovak Red Cross, as well as the HORECA segment – currently via the Safe Restaurant project. The company also keeps its employees who cannot work due to the pandemic in mind and pay them 80% of their salary. Coca-Cola plans to continue investing in Czechia and Slovakia also in the next year.
The Coca-Cola system is based on continuous innovations and optimization of production and logistics processes, expanding the product portfolio, as well as investing in the environment, into employees and communities. This is also why it invested almost 2 billion CZK (77 mio EUR) into many improvements in Czechia and Slovakia over the period of 2017-2020. Despite the pandemic, which forces many companies to reduce their costs, these investments have not been interrupted or reduced.
The first important investment in logistics was the new, fully-automated warehouse in Prague - Kyje that cost a total of half a billion CZK. Its faster and more efficient, completely automated, and highly flexible operation prevents unnecessary movement, transport, and storage in external warehouses. In addition to the restored PET line from 2018, a completely new PET line with state-of-the-art technology of automatic format changing using a robot is now also available, which allows for example to reduce the weight of these bottles. It is interesting to mention that the Kyje premises, which are part of the Coca-Cola Hellenic group, is the first place ever to produce plant-based beverages that are distributed to another 7 countries.
In this atypical year that affected the business of global giants, as well as local companies, it is important to invest in employees and overcome the difficult situation together. Some employees were moved over to other positions and those who cannot perform their jobs due to the pandemic are compensated with 80 percent of their salary, as opposed to the obligatory 60 percent.
“We realize that the current situation is very demanding for everyone, now also for those who are in isolation. We appreciate the amazing job our employees have been doing and this is one of the ways we take care of them. It is important to take care of our physical as well as mental health,” said Dan Timotin, CEO of Coca-Cola BC CZK and SK.
Coca-Cola also keeps the environment in mind and together with the new warehouse in Kyje it is also building a natural wetland that retains rainwater. In the Broumov region, it supported the Analysis of Landscape Adaptation to Climate Change project (focusing on water retention) with a quarter of a million Czech crowns. All the energy used in the production of non-filtered waters comes from renewable resources and the total energy consumption is 2 million kilowatt-hours lower and saves up to 12 thousand cubic meters of water. To ensure the ecological distribution of products, diesel engine cars were replaced with Volkswagen Caddy Maxis that use natural gas. This reduced the carbon footprint by up to 11 %.
“Just as important as continuous improvement of productions and products is whether our production negatively impacts the environment. This is why the vast majority of investments focused on ecological innovations, sustainability, local suppliers, renewable natural resource, or returning resources to nature. We hope that our activities will inspire other companies, not only here but also abroad,” added D. Timotin.
The Coca-Cola system also showed its solidarity towards the community, as many of its activities helped the Czech and Slovak Red Cross, hospitals, rescue workers, and other services that help fight the pandemic. Support was also directed towards citizens and employees of Prague 14, where we shipped 20 thousand drinks, 15 thousand bottles for sanitizer distribution and invested a quarter of a million into an irrigation system. Within our further support, we initiated negotiations on the reconstruction of bus stops near the plant, in cooperation with neighboring companies we modified the crossing at the Českobrodská street, and we plan to build noise-canceling barriers.
These planned activities will not be affected by the current pandemic situation. Within the Word Without Waste vision, we are getting ready to start packing Natura water into 100% recycled PET, made of recycled PET bottles.