Coca-Cola HBC Hungary increased its mineral water production capacity in Zalaszentgrót with an investment of HUF 300 million

Coca-Cola HBC Hungary has expanded its mineral water bottling capacity at its Zalaszentgrót plant with an investment worth nearly HUF 300 million. In addition to increasing capacity, the recently completed investment contribute to the more economical and more flexible operation of the Zalaszentgrót plant, which serves consumer needs even better, as well as the company's sustainability efforts.

The capacity of the production line has increased by 20 percent with the investment; the Zalaszentgrót plant can now bottle up to 1.9 million litres of mineral water per day. Due to the recently completed development, the amount of specific energy used in Zalaszentgrót will decrease, which means that the company has taken another important step to reduce its ecological footprint.

As part of the bottling production line’s capacity increase, the company has also upgraded its packaging line, which wraps packs of products placed on pallets with foil to ensure their safety during logistics processes. In parallel with the development and in addition to the 6 and 12 bottles of shrink-foiled products used so far, the company also introduced a pack of 24 bottles for half-litre, non-carbonated NaturAqua products.

Following a greenfield investment, the bottling plant in Zala started production in 2002. The Coca-Cola Hellenic Group has invested HUF 12.8 billion in Zalaszentgrót over the past 18 years. The company bottles NaturAqua, its natural mineral water brand, in carbonated, mildly carbonated, and non-carbonated versions, as well as its flavoured NaturAqua Emotion products. The water is extracted from a 685 meters deep spring and was filtered for 14,000 years resulting a balanced composition. GLACEAU Smartwater has also been bottled in Zalaszentgrót since 2018. Smartwater’s main ingredient is the mineral water of the company's Zalaszentgrót bottler, from which a particularly clean and fresh-tasting drink with added electrolytes is created during a production process that recreates cloud formation. Prior to Hungary, only the UK and the Netherlands has used the technology needed to produce smartwater in Europe. 

The goal remains a World Without Waste

The PET bottles produced and distributed by the company, including those manufactured in Zalaszentgrót, are 100 percent recyclable – in line with the company's global World Without Waste strategy announced in 2018. The goal for the company is to collect as many plastic bottles and aluminium cans as it sells by 2030, creating a sustainable cycle that spans through the entire life cycle of a product; as well as to increase the proportion of recycled plastic per bottle up to 50 percent. The amount of plastic used in domestic production has decreased by 15 percent in recent years, and as a result of technological development worth about 100 million forints, the amount of plastic used for sparkling drink bottles has decreased by another 4 percent this year. The latter means that the company uses 600 tons less plastic per year, which equates to a total weight of 24 million PET bottles. PET bottles account for only 3% of all packaging waste in Hungary.