Estonia, EU – Baltic States, Latvia, Lithuania, Markets and Companies

Coca-Cola announced last year that it has started analysing the possibilities of moving away from Estonia. One of the versions mulled then was to move the whole production to Latvia. Yesterday, Coca-Cola HBC Estonia PR manager Piret Jaaks said that the Latvia plan is in force but the company won’t start building a new plant there in the near future.

“We have in the meanwhile analysed the current market situation to adopt a decision as to the following steps,” she said.

“The management reached a conclusion that we will not start building a new plant yet but as an intermediate solution, a transition to the future plant solution, we intend to relocate production of PET-packaging in our Lithuanian Alytus plant and move production of glass bottling to Poland by way of subcontracting,” she said.

Jaaks specified that the company has found a suitable lot in Ropazhi, Latvia and intends to buy it. Jaaks didn’t get a direct answer as to whether the Estonian staff would be made redundant, explaining only that consultations have been started with representatives of staff.