Coca Cola Amatil

Products

CCA's diversified portfolio of products includes carbonated soft drinks, spring water, sports drink and energy drinks, fruit juices, iced tea, flavoured milk, coffee, tea and SPC Ardmona and Goulburn Valley packaged ready-to-eat fruit and vegetable snacks and products.

Countries served

As at December 2014, Coca-Cola Amatil employed 14,700 people in six countries across the Asia-Pacific region.

The company is the bottler of Coca-Cola products in Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Fiji, and Samoa.

Ownership

Coca-Cola Amatil is listed on the Australian Securities Exchange, however The Coca-Cola Company has a 29% shareholding in Coca-Cola Amatil, as it does with each of its primary or "anchor" bottlers in the worldwide Coca-Cola system.

History

The company's Australian origins date back to 1904 as the tobacco company British Tobacco (Australia). Its first foray into soft drinks came in 1964 with the purchase of Coca-Cola Bottlers (Perth), and the company was listed on the Australian Stock Exchange in 1972.

Soft drinks and snack foods gradually became the primary focus of the company, and was renamed Allied Manufacturing and Trade Industries Limited in 1973 and Amatil Limited in 1977. It began to expand bottling operations overseas in Europe, purchasing a Coca-Cola bottling plant in Australia in 1982 and expanding into Fiji and New Zealand in 1987. A majority stake was purchased by The Coca-Cola Company in 1989, although today its ownership is 29%. In 1989, the company sold its WD & HO Wills tobacco division to British American Tobacco.

The snack food operations were sold in 1992, and European operations were spun off into a new company, Coca-Cola Beverages, in 1998. Expansion into Asia continued, though Filipino bottling was eventually sold to San Miguel Brewery and parent The Coca-Cola Company.

Coca-Cola Amatil's Group Managing Director is Alison Watkins, and the board chairman is David Gonski.

CCA has facilities all over Australia, with key sites at Northmead (NSW), North Sydney (NSW), Richlands (Qld), Moorabbin (Vic), Thebarton (SA) and Hazelmere (WA). CCA announced on 22 February 2017 that it would be closing the Thebarton site on Port Road early in 2019 as there was no space to expand it, and expanding the Richlands site in Queensland.

From 2006 to 2011, CCA had a joint venture (named Pacific Beverages) with SABMiller to distribute its drinks in Australia. In 2011, SABMiller acquired Foster's Group and full ownership of Pacific Beverages; in exchange, Foster's sold its Fiji and Samoa operations to Coca-Cola Amatil in 2012.

Cash for Containers

Much controversy has surrounded Coca-Cola's fierce opposition to Cash for Containers. Allegations of Coca-Cola wielding their power and wealth to unfair advantage over public policy have been prominent. Former WA shadow minister John Hyde supported allegations that beverage industry lobbyists raised the suggestion of campaigning against Labor members if support for Cash for Containers was not dropped. Former treasurer Delia Lawrie has also reported a meeting where Coca-Cola allegedly offered to fund the Country Liberal Party to oppose a container deposit scheme, a claim representatives strongly denied.

Alec Wagstaff, Director of Corporate Affairs at Coca-Cola Amatil, admitted the beverage industry had spent a couple of hundred thousand dollars back in 2008 campaigning against the Greens Party who strongly promoted the Cash for Containers Scheme.

Similar tactics used by the beverage industry in Western Australia have been blamed for the Government's rejection of a Cash for Containers scheme, despite the state's 20% container-recycling rate.

Lawsuit against Northern Territory Government

In 2013, Coca-Cola Amatil joined with Schweppes and Lion in a legal challenge against the Northern Territory Government's 'Cash for Containers' (also known as Container Deposit Legislation) recycling scheme arguing it breached the Mutual Recognition Act 1992. This Act creates a legal requirement that "goods produced in or imported into the first State, that may lawfully be sold in that State… (may) be sold in the second State." The Beverage Companies argued that the recently introduced Cash for Containers scheme, which doubled recycling rates to 30% in the Northern Territory in the limited time it operated, hindered this right by requiring the company to implement different production processes for the same product in different states and territories. South Australia is exempt from legal action as its Container Deposit scheme precedes the Act. The federal court ruled in favour of the Beverage Companies. The ruling sparked public outrage and led to Coca Cola's Facebook page being bombarded and some calling for a boycott.

According to a 2008 Clean Up Australia poll, 80% of Australians support a Cash for Containers scheme - a recycling scheme which rewards consumers by refunding a 10 cent deposit on beverage containers.

Coca-Cola argues that the Cash for Containers scheme is ineffective and costly suggesting a "National Bin Network" as an alternative solution. The Council of Australian Governments (COAG) found the cost of a national CDS to the economy would be between $1.4 and $1.76 billion but research undertaken by the Boomerang Alliance in 2008 suggested that such a scheme would in fact bring about saving of up to $84 million.

Organisations such as Keep Australia Beautiful and the Boomerang Alliance support the initiative as an addition to Cash for Containers, but argue that if used alone it will make a comparatively insignificant difference to recycling rates.

Former Northern Territory Chief Minister, Terry Mills, stated that he would continue to fight against Coca-Cola for Cash for Containers and called on other States and Territories to support the Scheme.