Clearly Drinks to invest in new canning line

line will be capable of producing 500 cans a minute, 30,000 cans an hour and 160m cans every year. It will be introduced at its north-east-based headquarters and is expected to be operational from March 2021.

In 2019, Clearly Drinks acquired flavoured water brand Revolution Waves for an undisclosed sum​​.

In the same year it revealed that investing in people and processes enabled it to grow revenue by 20% and staff by 50% in the last 12 months​​.

Upstream​

In this latest investment Clearly Drinks said its premium adult soft drink Upstream would be the first brand to be made using the new line. The drinks company, which also produces brands including Perfectly Clear, Revolution Waves and Northumbria Spring, said it would be revealing “additional exciting new products”​ later this year. 

The new soft drinks canning facility will be supplied by BW Integrated Systems, which is a division of Barry-Wehmiller, the global packaging and engineering firm, with its UK headquarters located in Doncaster.

In 2017 the company secured investment from North Edge, the private equity firm. 

Investment ​

Mick Howard, chief executive officer at Clearly Drinks, said: “Securing this investment with NorthEdge for our new can facility here at our Clearly Drinks factory in Sunderland allows us to diversify our offering and develop our product lines. ​

“We’ll start production with ​our popular consumer brand Upstream immediately and the machinery’s speed and efficiency will allow us to manufacturer other contract pack products and develop further opportunities with other brands which we’ll announce in due course.”​

As well as offering its own range of branded flavoured water Clearly Drinks also offers contract bottling services to customers such as Hartridges, Get More Drinks and Sainsbury’s private label. 

In 2017, Clearly Drinks created 12 new jobs, after expanding production at its factory in Sunderland​​.