In spite of the Christchurch earthquake, Coca-Cola is forging ahead with its plans to build a $15 million bottle manufacturing and filling operation at its Woolston Plant, which was damaged in the disaster.

Plans for the significant capital investment were approved before the second earthquake struck.

The company has weighed up its options and decided to go ahead with the state-of-the-art facility.

It will manufacture beverages for the whole South Island and some of the North Island.

Structural repair work is underway for the company’s Woolston Plant, with commissioning of its new Blowfill technology scheduled to commence in four to six weeks.

The technology “blows” a PET bottle while on the production line from a pre-form PET resin, and then automatically fills it with beverage.

The production line will be able to produce up to 16,000 filled bottles an hour.

Coca-Cola Amatil managing director George Adams said the decision to build the operation is a major vote of confidence in the future of Christchurch as an economic hub.

“We are pleased we can make this early commitment to our work force of more than 140 people, our customers and the communities in which we operate.

“We feel privileged that in a modest way we can contribute to the re-emergence of Christchurch as one of the country’s premier cities.”

Coca-Cola Amatil has five production plants – two in Auckland, two in Christchurch and one in Putaruru.

It has three distribution centres in Auckland, Christchurch and Palmerston North.

Its Woolston site has two production lines; one produces carbonated soft drinks and the other postmix syrup.

The carbonated soft drink line at Woolston, which makes two million physical cases per annum, is the one to be upgraded to Blowfill technology.

The Christchurch base distributes all 300-plus product lines to the South Island and employs 140 staff on both locations.