Diageo has committed to investing $400m in a production facility in Mexico, one day after it announced similar investment in a bottling plant in Ethiopia.
The company announced it would expand its distilling, bottling and water treatment facilities and increase its agave farming capacity, following the acquisition of Mexican tequila brand Don Julio last week. Including acquisition costs, it will bring Diageo’s total investment in the country up to $400m and could create 200 jobs, the company said.
Diageo Mexico manager director Erik Seiersen claimed that Diageo would now “play a key role in developing Mexico’s most important geographical indication and driving its success on a global scale”.
Diageo chief executive Ivan Menezes added: “Mexico is a country of enormous opportunity and will form an important part of Diageo’s future. This investment reaffirms our long-term commitment to Mexico and we look forward to playing a bigger role in the industry, investing in our people and communities and supporting wider economic development.”
Earlier this week, Diageo inaugurated a $119m bottling line expansion at its Meta Abo brewery near the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa. The investment will triple the facility’s annual capacity to 1.7m hectolitres, little more than three years after it was acquired by Diageo. The new Krones bottling line uses flash pasteurisation technology to minimise human intervention, leading to higher quality control and an increase on packaging capacity of nearly 50%.
The London-based company predicted that the investment would allow it to “meet future consumer demand and support the introduction of new product innovations to the Ethiopian market such as Zemen lager beer launched by Meta Abo in December 2014”.
Menezes said: “We are now celebrating three years since the acquisition of Meta Abo and are proud to have arrived at another significant milestone in our brewery’s growth with the commissioning of the new production line.
“Today marks an exciting new chapter in our journey here in Ethiopia as we look ahead to the next three years and beyond. Ethiopia is a country of enormous opportunity. Our commitment here, and to Africa as a whole, is absolute. We will continue to invest in the long-term growth of our brands, the Meta business, our people and the communities in which we operate, for the benefit of all.”
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