The Coca-Cola Bottling Company said it plans to invest $22.6 million at its East Hartford production center and another $42 million in a new sales center nearby.
New Hampshire-based Coca-Cola Bottling Company of Northern New England (CCNNE) announced plans Friday to invest $64.6 million in Connecticut as it shifts production volume away from its Needham, Mass. facility by year-end. Other investments will be made at its production center in Londonderry, N.H., Coca-Cola said.
The company said it is finalizing the permitting for a “state-of-the-art” sales center in Connecticut and will announce the location and projected opening date in the coming months.
Coca-Cola will begin installing East Hartford’s new production line early in 2019, with an expected completion about a year after.
Coca-Cola said it is slated to invest about $70 million in Connecticut, Massachusetts and New Hampshire following an extensive study of the company’s operations.
“We plan to maintain the entire footprint of the Needham facility, repurposing the production space to enhance our sales operation, but we regret that the necessary changes will result in job impacts for associates currently working in production in Needham,” Nick Martin, CCNNE’s director of public affairs and communications, said in a letter to U.S. Rep. John B. Larson.
Larson on Monday applauded Coca-Cola’s East Hartford expansion as it signals a “brighter business future” in Connecticut.
East Hartford’s 400,000-square-foot production, distribution and sales center employs 500 and produced over 30 million cases in 2017.
In recent years, Coca-Cola has divested all of its company-owned facilities, selling its East Hartford facility to CCNNE in Sept. 2017, restructuring contracts with bottlers and buying out independent bottling centers.
CCNNE through other acquisitions in the Northeast has more than tripled its workforce and expanded annual production from 27 million cases to more than 82 million.
