News

Drugs and consumer goods giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) is to spend £70m bringing bottle-blowing inhouse for two of its biggest drinks brands, Ribena and Lucozade.

The firm has revealed plans to build a bottle blowing and moulding operation at its factory in Coleford, Gloucestershire, alongside the factory that produces the two drinks.

Ribena became one of the first bottled drinks to move to using 100% recycled PET earlier this year and GSK Nutrional Healthcare spokesman John Brewer said that this would continue at the new plant.

He added that GSK was looking at all the options for the Lucozade bottles, which are not currently made from rPET.

It is understood that the plant will use around 25,000 tonnes of rPET and PET to produce up to 1bn bottles every year when it begins production in 2010. The bottles are currently produced in North Wales.

GSK has put green credentials at the heart of the project, which will include construction of a combined heat and power plant and is intended to cut transport.

GSK Coleford, which employs around 500 staff, is already one of the only factories in the country with a zero waste-to-landfill policy and this investment would support that.

Site director Mike Allen said in a statement that the project demonstrates GSK’s long-term commitment to our factory.

Andrew Witty, chief executive of the £3.5bn-turnover group, told a newspaper that the company was investing in the consumer business as a source of growth that would help diversify and grow GSK’s overall sales.

Planning permission has not yet been secured for the new plant, although GSK has said that the factory would be concealed from public view by existing GSK buildings.