Strike to hit Europe’s largest Coca Cola bottler

Unite members at the massive Coca Cola Europacific Partners soft drinks plant in Wakefield, Europe’s largest, will strike for fourteen days between 8 and 24 June after 87 per cent of those voting in a ballot rejected the employer’s offer of a 6 per cent rise. 

In 2022 Coca Cola Europacific Partners reported around £15 billion in revenue and an operating profit of £1.85 billion, a 37 per cent increase. Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: “Coca Cola Europacific Partners is making profits in the billions but it’s delivering a pay cut to the very workers who are making them.”

The Wakefield plant can produce 360,000 cans per hour, and 132,000 bottles per hour, of popular drinks such as Coke, in multiple versions, Sprite and Fanta, as well as Schweppes products.