Biella, 12 April 2024 – The CCH CircularPET production plant in Gaglianico (BI) of Coca-Cola HBC Italia, the main manufacturer and distributor of The Coca-Cola Company brand products on the national territory, today hosted the institutional visit of the Deputy Minister of Economy and Finance Maurizio Leo, accompanied by the Councilor for Labor of the Piedmont Region, Elena Chiorino, and the representatives of the company Stefano Lorenzon, Director of the CCHCP plant in Gaglianico, and Giangiacomo Pierini, Corporate Affairs & Sustainability Director of Coca-Cola HBC Italia.
The institutional visit made it possible to tell and describe to the institutions the cutting-edge technologies used in the plant which, thanks to an investment of over 30 million euros, the largest of the Coca-Cola HBC Group, has been transformed from a disused factory into a plant that employs 56 people. selected in the area also thanks to the support of the Piedmont Employment Agency and all specially trained to have the necessary skills to manage the innovative machinery installed.
The Piedmontese hub in Gaglianico, inaugurated in November 2022, is now an industrial plant of excellence in Italy in the field of circular economy and is able to transform up to 30,000 tons of PET per year into new 100% recycled PET (rPET) bottles, capable of meeting the company's soft drink production needs in Italy.
Giangiacomo Pierini, Corporate Affairs & Sustainability Director of Coca-Cola HBC Italia, said: "Italy is a leader in Europe for packaging recycling and our factory in Gaglianico represents a concrete and tangible example of attention to the circular economy by the beverage industry. A virtuous sector that in recent times has faced difficulties linked, for example, to the increase in the cost of raw materials and the contraction of consumption and which now expresses deep concern due to possible new taxation".
Biella and Piedmont - a region that is also home to the Lurisia mineral water bottling factory in Roccaforte di Mondovì (CN) - are central to Coca-Cola's strategy and this is demonstrated by the data of an SDA Bocconi School of Management research which shows that, in 2022, they amount to 37 million euros (0.03% of regional GDP) the resources generated and distributed by Coca-Cola to the main players in the regional economy in the form of salaries, purchases of goods and services, investments, taxes and contributions. In Piedmont, Coca-Cola also creates, directly and through its related industries, 3,011 jobs (0.2% of the total employment in the region), while the network of suppliers is represented by 16% large companies, 27% by medium-sized enterprises, 46% by small enterprises and 10% by micro enterprises.