NIGERIA – The Nigerian Bottling Company (NBC), franchise bottler of Coca-Cola in Nigeria, has successfully completed the installation of a new high-speed canning line at its Ikeja plant, as part of its business optimisation and transformation plans.
The new line is expected to boost NBC’s local production and export capacity, allowing it to meet increasing demand and undertake its production in a sustainable way as beverage cans are light in weight and recyclable.
It is part of the company’s commitment to continue investing in the country.
“As a leading consumer packaged goods company, NBC is committed to supporting the Nigerian economy and its people.
“In addition, as our products continue to cater to a growing range of tastes, we seek to continue to offer our consumers a wider choice of healthier options, premium products and increasingly sustainable packaging,” said Director, Public Affairs and Communications, NBC, Ekuma Eze.
“This is why we’ve made this significant investment into the installation of this new can manufacturing line at our Ikeja plant,” he added.
According to reports by Naira Metrics, the new high-speed line will significantly increase the firm’s production capacity for canned products as production time will be greatly reduced.
This will in turn increase the availability of Coca-Cola can products which will now come in modern sleek cans.
As part of the company’s optimization plan, NBC also developed a Greenfield factory in Challawa plant, Kano State to scale up operations. The factory commenced operations in February.
Eze also disclosed in the statement that the company has plans in place to install additional bottling lines at the plant in 2021.”
The business transformation and optimisation plan of NBC commenced in 2015 and since then, the Coke System in Nigeria, comprising NBC and The Coca-Cola Company, has invested over €650 million in the expansion and extensive upgrade of its manufacturing plants in Asejire, Ikeja, Abuja, Owerri, Challawa, Maiduguri, Port Harcourt and Benin.
The global beverage cans market size was estimated at US$ 39.93 billion in 2015, growing at a CAGR of 4.6% from 2016 to 2024 to reach US$60.92 billion, reports Grand View Research,
The demand for highly portable beverage packaging coupled with superior properties of the cans including protection from the external environment is expected to emerge as the primary driver for the market growth.
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