IRELAND- American food and beverage giant PepsiCo has submitted a planning application to Cork County Council, Ireland, to expand its existing production building and associated site at the PepsiCo campus at Little Island.
The facility opened in 1974 is managed by Portfolio Concentrate Solutions UC, the legal entity of PepsiCo Ireland.
It produces concentrates for the group’s range of CSDs including PepsiMax, Mountain Dew, and SevenUp, which are exported to over 100 countries worldwide.
The proposed development consists of “an expansion to the existing production building to provide an additional 3,252 sqm floor space, in addition to ancillary and associated on-site works.,” PepsiCo said in a statement.
PepsiCo has been steadily expanding its presence in Ireland, having bought two further plots at Little Island in 2020.
Alongside its Little Island operations, the group also owns another factory in Carrigaline, Cork. The PepsiMax owner in 2003, invested EUR100m (US$106m) in building that plant. In total, PepsiCo’s headcount in the country stands at over 500 employees.
At the same time, the company has installed a solar thermal plant at its factory in Feira de Santana, where it produces Toddynho and Toddy.
The plant, which will start operating in April of next year, will generate around 3 kWh/m2/day, on average, in an area of 2,000 square meters of slabs on the roof of the factory.
The green-production initiative will save more than 230,000 m³ of natural gas per year and also bolster its sustainability efforts to be a zero carbon-emitter by 2040.
In addition, the company recently teamed with Unilever, Diageo, and Pulpex Limited to form a partner consortium in the development of a 100% plastic-free paper-based bottle.
Furthermore, in September 2022, PepsiCo pledged to “spread regenerative farming” across 7 million acres by the end of the decade.
PepsiCo has also announced it will start using 100 Tesla Semi electric trucks to transport its products next year.
In this way, the company will become the first to transport products on Tesla electric trucks on a large commercial scale.
PepsiCo has plans to deploy 15 trucks from Modesto and 21 from Sacramento, but it’s unclear where the others will be based.
However, PepsiCo Vice President Mike O’Connell said the firm is targeting rolling out the Semis in the central United States next, and then the East Coast. All the Semis going to PepsiCo will have a 500-mile (805-km) range.
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