Following the journey of a Coca-Cola bottle

MANILA, Philippines – Iconic. Ubiquitous. These words come to mind when we think of the Coca-Cola bottle. Who hasn’t seen one? Coke bottles have certainly been around for many decades… over a century, in fact. If only they could speak, what tales would we hear them tell?

Instead, we settled for the next best thing: we took a tour of the Coca-Cola bottling plants in Laguna. We followed the Coca-Cola bottle’s journey, starting from manufacturing to distribution to retail and point of sale.

First, we were given a briefing by Cat Avelino, external communications and CSR manager of Coca-Cola FEMSA Philippines, the franchise owner for the manufacture, distribution and sale of all Coca-Cola products in the country.

“FEMSA is a Latin American-based company,” Avelino says. “It’s the largest franchise bottler of Coca-Cola products in the world. It operates in nine countries, primarily in Latin America. The Philippines is its first venture in Asia and has been in the country since 2013.”

We are at the Coca-Cola bottling plant in Sta. Rosa, Laguna. Most likely you’ve seen those giant cans of Coke, Sprite, and Royal Tru-Orange just as you exit the tollway on your way to Tagaytay or other parts south of Manila. (The giant cans are actually water tanks.) This is where the Sta. Rosa bottling plant is located, 40 kilometers south of Manila. It is the biggest Coca-Cola facility in the country in terms of land size and capacity. From a total land area of 35 hectares, eight hectares were donated to the government to create the toll gate and
interchange, opening up the area, which accelerated commercial and industrial activity.

The plant in Sta. Rosa started in 1990 with three lines, and a fourth line was added later on. It started production with returnable glass bottles (RGB) first. The non-returnable lines were built in 1997. Two lines were set up for their juice products. The last line was set up  in 2010,  with more planned for expansion. The plant produces primarily beverages in glass bottles as well as in aluminum cans.

“Line” refers to the whole automated process, with very minimal human intervention.

The content starts as concentrates. The syrup is mixed with water and then carbonated. It is then bottled, capped, labeled and cooled. Quality inspection is done using state-of-the-art equipment, as well as by specially trained and qualified analysts following the strictest quality-control measures. The bottles are then packed and brought to the warehouse, ready for immediate dispatch and distribution.

What is Coke made of?

“It’s 90 percent water with some sweetener and natural flavors,” Avelino says. “But our products are more than its ingredients. It involves the lives and lots of love by the people who make them.”

With 732 regular employees, Sta. Rosa is the most populated plant in the country. At least half of the employees have been in service for more than five years.

Quality analyst Beverly Taaranza and quality supervisor Luisa Talibasao have been working at the Sta. Rosa plant for the past 25 years. Talibasao lives in Sta. Rosa. She says Coca-Cola has been good to her. It has given her not only employment but also helped in her personal growth. She gained not only technical but also leadership skills. She has benefited from its health programs as well.

While the plant in Sta. Rosa is the largest in the country, the plant in Canlubang has the fastest line, which can handle 81,000 bottles per hour or 22 bottles a second, says Abo Sibayan, who is in charge of production in Canlubang. He started working at Sta. Rosa before his transfer to Canlubang.

Like Sibayan, Bogs Sibug, a beverage process technician, also started in Sta. Rosa in 1989 before his transfer to Canlubang, where he has been working for 17 years since 1999.  The Canlubang plant produces primarily beverages in PET bottles and packaging.

With 393 employees at the Canlubang plant, what is most important is that they are all Filipinos, says Canlubang plant manager Jorge Hernandez Martinez, who is from Mexico, where FEMSA has its headquarters. He came to the Philippines in January 2013.   

“We are a very big family in the Philippines,” Avelino says. “We have 19 plants, close to 60 sales offices or distribution centers, and  around 10,000 employees. We are one of the largest multinational employers in the country. Combined with the families of our employees, over 100,000 family members are impacted by our business. For many of our 4,500 suppliers, we are their biggest client; 800,000 sari-sari stores or mom-and-pop operations make a living out of selling our products, plus 24,000 retail outlets, larger establishments such as grocery stores, restaurants, large fast-food and supermarket chains.”

“We’ve become part of the life of the communities where we are located,” says Juan Carlos Dominguez, corporate affairs director for Coca-Cola FEMSA Asia Division. “We have invested in the creation of our plants. We expanded the Canlubang plant as well as the plant  in Misamis Oriental, and we are planning other line expansions in other plants. These generate jobs. In the past three years, we have created 3,200 brand new jobs, and the interesting thing is these jobs are at the entry level; 99.9 percent of our employees are Filipino.

“We hire from the locality, so the employees at the Sta. Rosa plant, for example, are from Sta. Rosa. For the sari-sari stores, 40-45 percent of their income is from soft-drink sales.”

Lillian de la Cruz sells Coca-Cola soft drinks, which go well with the dishes that she serves at her roadside eatery in Canlubang. Coke gave her red plastic tables and chairs, as well as a ref where she keeps three cases (25 bottles per case) at a time. This is replenished with a fresh delivery twice a week. Her small business helped her see her three children through school, two of whom have graduated from UP Los Baños and one from UA&P with a master’s degree.

Carmen Pabrua  runs a carinderia as well as a sari-sari store in Canlubang. To keep up with the brisk sales, Coca-Cola gave her two refs as well as red plastic tables and chairs. At least three to five cases are consumed in two days. When customers ask for soft drinks, they automatically expect to get Coke, Carmen says. It has almost become generic.  She has opened two more sari-sari stores and is currently constructing an apartment unit, proof that her business is doing very well.  

“It is seeing success stories such as these that push us to keep improving every day,” Dominguez says. ”We have a general development program for sari-sari store owners by which we provide them access and contacts to micro credit. Sari-sari stores are relevant because they also provide credit to the people within the barangay.”

Together with the Women Empowerment Program, which Coke runs with TESDA, women are given training in accounting, business negotiation, handling stocks and  inventories. They also have a program with the Department of Labor for returning OFWs. “Because of the crisis in the Middle East, the government expects around 1.2 million Filipinos to return within the next 18 months,” Dominguez says. “There are engineers among them who could work in our plants.”

“Our business is not just about manufacturing beverages,” he adds.

“Our business is intertwined with the lives of millions of Filipinos, from those that are employed by us, those who supply our raw materials, and those whose livelihoods include delivering or selling our products. Their success is our success, and we want to support them every step of the way.”

The next time you hold a Coca-Cola bottle in your hand,  perhaps you’ll remember all those loving hands that made your Coke bottle’s journey possible.