Lisburn-based Coca-Cola factory creates 35 jobs through £17m Monster funding boost

Thirty-five fulltime jobs and a new energy drink canning line have been created at the Coca-Cola factory in Northern Ireland as part of a £17m investment.

The partnership with Monster Energy Drink has increased the factory floor size by 4,597m2 , enabling 60,000 500ml cans to be produced every hour.

While 30% of those will remain in the island of Ireland, the remainder will be exported to Great Britain and beyond.

Clive Wilson, Coca-Cola HBC's supply chain director told UTV: "It's been a two-year journey from where we were preparing the business case to actually now having this facility ready and being able to produce".

"This investment will give us the capability of producing around 18,000,000 physical cases per year."

The company currently employs over 750 people across sites in Lisburn, Dublin, Cork, Galway and Tipperary.

Mr Wilson told UTV the 35 jobs created through the £17m investment cross a range of areas, including "production operatives, quality, planning and some indirect jobs".

"We went really early with our recruitment campaign...to make sure we got the right people for the right roles," he added.

"We're really well placed here for north-south trade, which we've been doing for many, many years, and now for east-west."

A lot of our key suppliers are based on mainland GB so we're well used to the administrative implications that come with the (Windsor) Framework, and now obviously we'll be exporting east back to west.

"This is the first line that we have here in our Lisburn facility where we will be producing product and actually be exporting into the mainland GB."

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