Swire Coca-Cola acquires further territory in US’ Pacific Northwest

The Coca-Cola Company has agreed to sell additional bottling territory in the US states of Washington, Idaho and Oregon to Swire Coca-Cola USA, as part of its commitment to refranchising all of the bottling territories still under its control.

FoodBev revealed earlier this month that Coca-Cola would accelerate its efforts to partner with new and existing partners on the refranchising of all company-owned bottling territories in North America, three years earlier than initially planned.

Coca-Cola and Swire Coca-Cola have signed a letter of intent for the deal, which includes territory across the cities of Seattle, Spokane and Portland. It also covers “a wide area of the Pacific Northwest”. Swire Coca-Cola will also acquire two cold-fill production facilities in Washington and Oregon.

“We are delighted to sign this letter of intent with The Coca-Cola Company,” said Jack Pelo, president and CEO of Swire Coca-Cola USA. “This latest grant of additional territory rights, following on from the agreements to expand our territories in Colorado and Arizona, underscores the important role Swire is playing in The Coca-Cola Company’s refranchising initiatives in North America.”

Coca-Cola North America president Sandy Douglas Jr said: “Swire is a great partner, and we are excited at this proposed further expansion of their U.S. territories in the Coca-Cola system. We’re also pleased that the overall refranchising process is going very well in North America.”

Coca-Cola has also said that it has reached a definitive agreement for Great Lakes Coca-Cola Distribution to acquire additional territory in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois, Michigan and Iowa. A letter of intent for those territories was announced previously.

Coca-Cola began working with its bottling partners a decade ago to develop a model that would better meet the needs of consumers, and, since it closed a deal to acquire all of the North American territories of Coca-Cola Enterprises in 2010, has accelerated the implementation of the new model by strategically addressing the bottling system, customer service, product supply and a common IT platform.

Financial terms of the latest transaction between the company and Swire Coca-Cola, which is subject to both parties reaching definitive agreements on the deal, have not been disclosed.