Baton Rouge Coca-Cola Bottling Co. will invest $93 million more in the city and create 113 additional jobs, state and local officials said this morning.

Coca-Cola had begun construction of a new bottling and distribution center last year off Plank Road east of Metro Airport on 112 acres leased from the airport.
The expansion raises the total capital investment to $178 million for the project, which beat a rival bid from Mississippi to concentrate bottling operations for the central Gulf South region in Hattiesburg.

The new expansion included a $1.4 million state grant to help pay for drilling a pair of new water wells needed to make drinks like Vitamin Water and PowerAde, which require pasteurization.

Among earlier incentives, the city-parish negotiated the airport lease for Coca-Cola along with street and utility improvements, and the state helped arrange $27 million in Gulf Opportunity Zone bonds.

The new jobs will be created over four years, average $45,000 a year in pay and bring total employment to 563 for Coca-Cola in the city.

The first bottling lines of the plant will open late this year, and Coca-Cola will leave its Airline Highway facility entirely by early 2009, gaining an increase in bottling capacity from 25 million cases a year to 43 million cases.


Source: The Advocate, GARY PERILLOUX