A 230,000-square-foot Coca-Cola distribution centre that moves 100,000 cases of Coke a day has officially opened in east Richmond.
On Wednesday, Coca-Cola Canada Bottling and City of Richmond staff attended the sales, warehouse and distribution facility’s opening. In attendance were also Richmond Mayor Malcolm Brodie and Coca-Cola Bottling COO Mark Scholtes.
The distribution facility at 8040 Zylmans Way is the company’s largest facility in Canada, and supplies thousands of customers across the Lower Mainland and all of Coke's distribution centres across the province.
This new facility will allow the organization to improve the efficiency of their operations, merging the capabilities of various locations into one.
COO Mark Scholtes said Coke Canada is on a mission to be the leading beverage partner in the country, highlighting the need to invest in infrastructure to improve their growth and distribution capabilities.
“Since we formed as an independent coke bottling operation here in Canada six years ago, we've committed over $230-million of investment to support that growth,” he said. “This includes $42 million that we've invested here, particularly in Richmond.”
Coke Canada invested $18 million into this building, as well as a $24 million towards the construction of a new bottling line at their 2471 Viking Way bottling plant.
One of the benefits of the new Viking Way line include the introduction of blow moulding technology, consisting of repurposing a portion of a plastic bottle to create a new one and filling it in-house.
This is more efficient than traditionally delivering complete empty bottles to be filled and reduces transportation by 75 per cent, which has a significant impact on their environmental footprint, added Scholtes.
General manager Justin Emerson said the new Zylmans Way building moves around 100,000 cases of product per day, which could vary between 12 to 32 bottles per case, and has an approximate capacity of 1.75 million cases.
At the time of the opening, about one million cases of product were stored at the facility, all of which can be delivered in as little as 10 days. The facility operates 24 hours, six days a week and a half day on Sundays.
Scholtes underscored the importance of working with the local community, partnering up with non-profits like Big Brothers/Big Sisters of Langley, the Richmond Food Bank and the Ronald McDonald House.
“When you see that iconic red truck or vans all over the streets, those are our employees, those are our friends, those are our family,” he said. “We're not in the States. We're here in Richmond.”
Coke Canada Bottling currently employs around 550 people in the Lower Mainland and serves 5,000 customers, selling around 20 million cases of product each year.
The company injects more than $93 million to the Lower Mainland economy through vendors and partnerships, and will continue to serve the local community with this new building, Emerson added.
Richmond Mayor Malcolm Brodie said he reacted to this opening on two levels, one as mayor, and another on a personal level.
As mayor, he highlighted the investment, sustainability and the good-paying jobs the facility will bring to the city.
“You bring a state-of-the-art manufacturing and distribution centre right here to the City of Richmond, so we're very pleased to be welcoming you to this new facility,” he said. “Coca-Cola has been part of the Richmond community for many years, so it's not a new introduction, but it's a new structure and way of operating.”
On a personal level, he reminisced passing by the lights of the Coca-Cola manufacturing and distribution site south of the Burrard Bridge as a kid, celebrating the company’s ongoing confidence in Richmond.
“We are very pleased that you have decided to invest here in the City of Richmond. You will not be sorry for that,” he said. “We are looking forward to future generations of successful enterprise and operations here at the Coca-Cola distribution plant in east Richmond.”
Three million square feet of business park envisioned in east Richmond
This new facility is part of the Richmond Industrial Centre (RIC), the largest business park in the history of Metro Vancouver to be developed and retained by a single owner, according to their brochure.
Montrose Properties, the developer, has leased four of the 12 planned buildings, with the remaining structures currently in-progress.
Once finished, the complex will offer three million square feet for lease and generate roughly 4,800 jobs.
Starting in 1980, the site of the RIC operated as a construction and demolition debris landfill owned and operated by Ecowaste Industries Ltd.
In 2010, they partnered with developer Omicron to turn the area into an industrial park.
Construction of the first 200,000-square-foot building began in late 2019. It was completed in 11 months at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
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