Four years ago, Britvic concluded a significant investment programme aimed at transforming its supply chain and enhancing its digitalisation and sustainability. This initiative consolidated its production into three strategically located sites along the M1, featuring ten new production lines, three warehouses, and three syrup rooms, all completed over four years.
Since then, it has added four more lines and another warehouse. This came with big commitments to generate a return on investment while being able to satisfy demand regardless of the growth aspirations.
Nigel Paine, Supply Chain & Operations Director at Britvic, discusses how Britvic has achieved these massive milestones and the journey the business took to get there. Nigel explains how Britvic has reacted to growing consumer demand and rapidly changing trends through the use of digitalisation, all while keeping sustainability front and centre.
In the ever-evolving landscape of soft drink manufacturing, staying ahead of the curve is essential. Over the past few years, we’ve seen factors such as the global pandemic and the sudden launch of soft drinks from influencers/celebrities like Jake Paul and KSI seemingly disrupt the industry overnight, changing consumer demand patterns almost instantly. While our goal and purpose are to anticipate consumer needs, we need to be prepared to act fast to react to rapidly changing trends.
To address these ever-changing challenges and continue to meet consumer demand across Britvic, we have introduced three core principles to our manufacturing digital and sustainability programmes:
- Simplified planning: We create straightforward, actionable plans, avoiding unnecessary complexity.
- Built-in milestones: Whenever we start a project, we build in significant milestones, both large and small, at regular intervals to track progress and recognise achievements along the way.
- Action over discussions: We always try to prioritise actions over prolonged discussions. Not every discussion needs months of deliberation and completely bespoke solutions. Sometimes the best answer is the easiest and most straightforward.
While we use these steps for every project we undertake, we also use a simple framework to ensure we’re keeping sustainability front and centre throughout every step of the process. This framework consists of the five Rs that we have implemented resulting in some of the following real-world examples:
- Reduce …. the amount of wasted energy and water: We upgraded our Reverse Osmosis (RO) Systems unit, increasing water recovery from 65% to 85%+.
- Reuse …. water and heat: We clean our carbon beds monthly and are therefore able to reuse the backwash.
- Rethink… the rules in process: We store the water heat from our Commercial and Industrial Products and Services (CIPs) and run it through a heat pump to hold water at 92°C, meaning we only need a small top-up to create steam.
- Refuse…. to accept the norm: We changed from RO water to beverage water with Resistance Temperature Detectors (RTDs) as we can get the softness and pH levels without the higher energy filtration that we needed before technology advanced.
- Report…. and improve again: We continuously monitor and report our progress, using KPIs to ensure our targets are ambitious and achievable.
To effectively report on our sustainability and digital initiatives, we established strategic KPIs to track our progress both internally and externally (in the form of annual reports and customer commitments) to ensure we are on track and that our targets are ambitious and impactful enough. Validation is essential to ensure the credibility of our efforts, so we seek certification from the Science Based Targets initiative, which compels businesses to take genuine, measurable actions.
We are very proud of these initiatives, but we also know that we need to constantly evaluate our ways of working to ensure we’re not being complacent. Innovation and sustainability ideas often come from those in the factories or from those outside the industry who have a fresh perspective. As a result, we have implemented two simple methods to harness additional ideas. Firstly, we placed QR codes around our sites for anyone to submit ideas or projects, with rewards for the best ones. Secondly, we have collaborated with local schools. For several months over the past year, we worked with engineering students from Rugby High School for Girls to see if they could help us find more sustainable solutions on how to clean our finished cans to remove sticky residue. They discovered a way to save an amazing 34.6 million litres of water per year, saving both water and money. They even won a national school award for their efforts!
Overall, Britvic’s journey of innovation and adaptation in both sustainability and digital transformations underscores our commitment to staying ahead. By implementing cutting-edge technology, allowing for trial and error, and engaging with the community, we are not only meeting today’s demands but also helping to pave the way for a more sustainable and efficient future.
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