Coke Plant Growth Means Jobs

Monday, July 27, 2009

AUBURNDALE | When finished later this year, a $100 million expansion of Coca-Cola’s Main Street packaging plant will add more than 100 new jobs to Polk County’s economy.

Already the plant is running two of the three new production lines, one devoted to Minute Maid’s Simply Orange, a chilled, ready-to-pour, not-from-concentrate orange juice, said Ray Crockett. spokesman for Coca-Cola North America in Atlanta, which owns the Minute Maid brand.

The plant now employs 320 people, including 90 new jobs added this year, said Crockett, who noted not all those workers are tied to the new production lines. The new line could add about 20 more workers.

The new jobs pay an average annual wage of $43,800, including benefits, according to a press statement from the Central Florida Development Council, which is working with Polk Works and Polk State College to find and train workers.

“Coca-Cola’s Main Street plant is the gift that keeps giving,” said Jim DeGennaro, CFDC senior business marketing manager.

“This is the second major expansion of the Simply Orange Juice Plant, and it is a grand slam for Auburndale and Polk County.”

The Auburndale plant is adding a third new packaging line to open later this year, bringing the total to seven lines from a single line when it opened in 2003, he said.

Three existing lines package Simply Orange, Powerade and other Coke products, Crockett said. The seventh line will package single-serve beverages.

Growing sales of Simply Orange and other Coke juices drove the expansion, he said.

“Simply Orange has experienced double-digit growth in each of the past two years, and Simply Apple and Simply Grapefruit are No. 1 in the chilled apple and grapefruit juice categories in the U.S.,” Crockett said.

The juice for Simply Orange comes from the Auburndale processing plant run by Cutrale Citrus Juices U.S.A. Inc., the subsidiary of Brazil’s largest OJ processor.

Cutrale also has expanded its not-from-concentrate OJ storage facility to supply the Main Street plant and the new Port of Tampa facility announced earlier this week, said Hugh Thompson, Cutrale USA president. He declined to discuss details of its expansion.

For more information, contact Kevin Bouffard at kevin.bouffard@theledger.com