‘Sweet taste’ for Nestlé as firm ploughs cash into UK coffee and water
The food giant announced today that it planned to expand a Dolce Gusto production site in Tutbury, Derbyshire through a £110m (€127.6m) investment that it says will triple coffee capsule production.
The factory currently produces four million capsules a day for the Dolce Gusto brand (‘dolce gusto’ can be translated as ‘sweet taste’ in English) worth CHF450m (€366m) and 12 new high-speed production lines will triple its output, according to Nestle.
British Prime Minister David Cameron said: “This new investment by Nestlé and the jobs it will create is brilliant news for UK manufacturing and for the local community.”
Nestlé UK and IrelandCEO, Paul Grimwood, said that firm needed to innovate to remain ahead of the market but was committed to the ongoing modernisation of its UK manufacturing facilities.
The company employs 7,000 staff across 19 UK sites, and staffing levels at Tutbury will increase from 500 to 800 when the expansion is complete in 2013.
Nescafé Dolce Gusto coffee capsules are produced for the world market at Tutbury (with 90 per cent of output exported to over 38 countries) and another site in Girona, Spain.
‘Innovative’ bottle design
Nestlé Waters announced that it was investing over £35m in a new waters factory in Buxton, which will enable it produce what the firm claims will be the most lightweight PET bottles on the UK market.
Weight savings of 25 per cent would be possible due to an “innovative new bottle design” that Nestlé said would although it to use less PET than in its current design.
Nestlé will roll-out the new bottle across its range of still and sparkling Buxton Natural Mineral Water and Nestle Pure Life ranges, up to and including one-litre bottles.
A Nestlé spokeswoman told BeverageDaily.com that the investment would see four lines installed, two of which were new, with the other transferred from an existing facility; the theoretical site capacity was 1bn bottles.
She added that the company would run both sites concurrently for a period during 2012, with the aim of closing the old site completely later in the year.
Other planned features of the new site include a sustainable drainage system to manage water run-off; the company is also considering using heat generated by bottling lines to heat warehouse and office areas.
Provenance trend
Locally sourced water brands were growing significantly within the bottled water category – Buxton grew eight per cent last year in the ‘impulse’ segment, according to IRI Impulse Value Sales – and comprised 76 per cent of sales (Zenith International, January 2011), the Nestlé spokeswoman added.
Aside from consumer concern for provenance and environmental impact, “there is a general trend towards healthier living and particularly consumers ‘on the go’ commonly purchase bottled water as part of this trend”, she added.
Paolo Sangiorgi, managing director for Nestlé Waters UK, said: “Demand for our bottled water brands has seen double digit growth over the last 3 years. This major investment in a state of the art factory in Buxton clearly demonstrates our commitment to our market leading portfolio of bottled water.”
