BUSINESS

A Coke and smile

Visitors celebrate new $5 million Coca-Cola plant in Valparaiso

Annie Blanks
Northwest Florida Daily News

VALPARAISO — Community and business leaders gathered Thursday morning to tout the grand opening of Coca-Cola Bottling UNITED’s new $5 million bottling plant.

The 24,000-square-foot facility on Valparaiso Parkway broke ground in April 2016 and features a distribution center, warehouse, fleet maintenance center and administrative offices.

The Coca-Cola Co. has had a presence in Valparaiso since 1973, and officials hope the new plant will allow the soda giant to better serve its customers in Okaloosa and Walton counties and Florala, Alabama.

“Overall. we will be able to continue to create more jobs,” said Ed Hall, the Valparaiso sales center manager. “It will help attract local businesses as well, and help us serve customers in this area a lot more efficiently than we were able to do before.”

The plant currently employees 80 people and has a payroll of about $4.4 million annually, according to Hall.

“We have invested about 5 or 6 million dollars in this facility, along with about a 20 percent increase in employment when we took over in September of 2014,” said John Sherman, president and CEO of Coca-Cola Bottling UNITED. “Just that bit of economic impact is pretty substantial for our operation here, and also our community of Valparaiso. And also by investing in this area we are creating a better opportunity to grow, which helps our team here as well.”

The plant will service customers and retailers throughout the Florida Panhandle with its fleet of 19 tractor-trailers, three route delivery vehicles and nine vans and pickup trucks. It will also staff local service technicians and house a 24/7 customer solutions call center.

State Rep. Mel Ponder was on hand for the grand opening and touted the company’s longstanding presence in Valparaiso as an economic and business benefit for the community.

“Coca-Cola is not only a national player, but it also has a major regional impact,” said Ponder, R-Destin. “The generational impact it has had on our area, from the amount of families to employees having benefited from having this distribution point here in Valparaiso, is phenomenal. I want to give honor to them.”