PM tours General Soft Drinks facility

The new General Soft Drinks bottling facility in Marsa, built with an investment of €27 million was this morning toured by Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi.

The facility with a footprint of 21,000 square metres is on a 33,000 square metre site. It is one of the fastest concrete structures to be built with the entire project being completed within two years.

The building incorporates energy saving measures through the use of natural light, building insulation and waste water minimisation processes.

These measures led to the Malta plant getting a best practice award from the CocaCola company and several of its design elements have been shared with other plants around the world.

One production line is focused on packaging and bottling of carbonated soft drinks with a total capacity of 24,000 litres per hour. The other line is used to bottle water with a capacity of 18,000 litres per hour.

The warehouse, which is 18 metres high, covers an area of 4,500 square metres and has metal beams spanning from one side to the other. Each beam is 35 metres long and weighs 65 tonnes.

The company employs 260 employees, all of whom were trained following the move from the Qormi plant to Marsa.

Dr Gonzi described the company as one of Malta’s success stories with the Mizzi family, who ran General Soft Drinks managing to overcome major obstacles.

They did not give up but invested heavily and were now producing a high level product.

As long as the country continued investing and removing mediocrity then it would move ahead, Dr Gonzi said.

He said that Malta must never be afraid of change and reform. For when one modernised and invested reforms would help push the country forward.