Part of a EUR 39m capital investment plan for 2012, Nairobi Bottlers Limited (NBL, Nairobi / Kenya) – a local bottler for drinks giant Coca-Cola Company (Atlanta, Georgia / USA; www.thecoca-colacompany.com) – recently commissioned a new PET manufacturing line at its plant in Embakasi. Capable of turning out 28,000 bottles per hour, the line alone came at an investment cost of about EUR 12m. The added output more than doubles NBL’s existing capacity to some 12m PET bottles per year.

Local news reports claim NBL is the country’s sole producer of PET bottled beverage products and before the new line was put into place actually had to temporarily import bottles from neighbouring Tanzania to meet rising local demand. Patrick Pech, head of Coca-Cola Sabco (www.cocacolasabco.com) – the drinks giant’s African arm – told media that its six bottle producers in the country reached maximum capacity in December 2011. NBL is the largest of Coca-Cola’s bottlers in Kenya, accounting for about 50% of the country’s production volume.

Aside from the new PET line, the near EUR 40m investment is to go towards ensuring NBL’s backward integration, more specifically the company’s own preform manufacture, which is expected to kick off in March 2013. Reports indicate that NBL’s existing pre-form supplier Safepak (Nairobi) is unable to keep up with the rising demand, as PET bottle sales grew by 30% in 2011 alone. The booming local demand has also prompted Coca-Cola Sabco to install a new 36,000 bottle-per-hour line in Uganda in 2013.

Coca-Cola first began operations in Kenya in 1948, and acquired NBL in 1995. Some 1,000 workers are employed at the plant in Embakasi, which the group claims is one of its largest in the world.