By Modupe Gbadeyanka
The Ikeja, Lagos plant of the Nigerian Bottling Company Ltd (NBC) has successfully installed a new high-speed canning line, which is expected to boost NBC’s local production and export capacity, allowing it to meet up with increasing sales demand.
This is part of the company’s determination to forge ahead with its business transformation and optimisation plan and according to its Director of Public Affairs and Communications, Mr Ekuma Eze, the new line and its supporting capital investment are in line with the organisation’s commitment to continue investing in the country.
It was stated that the new high-speed line will significantly increase the firm’s production capacity for canned products, thereby reducing production time and making more Coca-Cola can products readily available to refresh Nigerians across the country.
In addition to the increased production capacity, all Coca-Cola products from the line will come in modern sleek cans.
“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.
“This is why we’ve made this significant investment into the installation of this new can manufacturing line at our Ikeja plant.
“This is just one level of our ongoing organizational transformation and optimization plan. For example, in the same vein, we recently scaled up operations in Challawa plant, Kano State, with the development of a greenfield factory which commenced operations in February this year with plans in place to install additional bottling lines at the plant in 2021,” Mr Eze said.
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.
