Nestlé Waters invests £31m in Buxton factory
Nestlé Waters said that work is already underway on a £26m extension to the factory’s warehouse facility to create a “state-of-the-art” logistics operation that will significantly reduce the need for external storage.
It will bring distribution in-house with the investment of a new 14000m2 facility that Nestlé Waters said would significantly reduce the need for products to be transported from the Buxton bottling plant to external warehouses by road. It is estimated that the new investment will cut CO2 emissions by around 480T every year based on current volumes.
A further £5m is being spent on the construction of a new pipeline from an additional, nearby, natural mineral water source. The Rockhead spring at Cowdale Quarry in the village of Cowdale, which was acquired by Nestlé Waters at the end of 2018, is being connected to the existing factory through a 4.6km pipeline running underground.
Bottling facilities
It is expected that both projects will be completed in the spring of 2021.
Michel Beneventi, managing director for Nestlé Waters in the UK said: “Our Buxton factory is already one of the most modern and efficient bottling facilities in the UK that is home to Buxton Britain’s no 1 natural mineral water brand.
“I am really pleased to be making such a significant investment in the long-term future of our site, the largest since it was opened. Water is one of the healthiest ways to hydrate and with these developments, we are creating the opportunity to improve the efficiency of our operations even more and increase capacity in a careful and sustainable way. This is an important part of our journey to become carbon neutral by 2025.”
The Buxton factory was opened in 2012 and the site already features a heat recovery system, sends zero waste to landfill and 100% of the site’s grid supplied electricity is renewable.
Partnership
The news comes as Biffa and Nestlé Waters UK revealed a new partnership to deliver 100% rPET made from British recycled plastic.
Biffa, the sustainable waste management business, will be supporting Nestlé Waters UK to achieve its commitment of making every BUXTON bottle from 100% recycled PET (recycled polyethylene terephthalate or rPET), by collecting recyclable PET bottles and reprocessing them here in the UK into rPET.
Nestlé Waters said the partnership would enable it to “significantly reduce” the amount of virgin plastic in circulation and lead the shift to using high-quality food-grade recycled PET in the UK, which today is sourced from Europe.
Earlier this year Nestlé has set out further plans to slash packaging waste, having announced that it has signed the European Plastics Pact.
The Food giant also revealed it was to dramatically reduce its reliance on virgin plastics as part of a CHF2bn (£1.59bn) investment in sustainable packaging.
And earlier this month Nestlé unveiled initiatives as part of its pledge to make all its packaging recyclable or reusable by 2025 and to slash its use of virgin plastics by one-third.
