Britvic Soft Drinks has extended its contract with leading supply chain solutions provider Wincanton for a further three years.
The extension means Wincanton will continue to operate Britvic's national distribution centre (NDC) in Lutterworth, Leicestershire.
The deal extends a partnership between the two businesses which has already lasted 20 years.
Wincanton operates a dedicated factory clearance operation in the form of a shuttle between the Rugby factory and the NDC - transporting 44 million cases per year - and an automated NDC with a throughput of 82 million cases per year.
In addition, it is upgrading the NDC site architecture and technology to improve throughput and increase automation. An on-site energy consumption system has also been installed to reduce the impact of operations on the environment.
In last year's July heat wave the NDC team put a total of 17.6 million cases through the site. At peak that was 400 vehicles and 10,096 pallets in one day - a record high.
Chris Kingshott, managing director for manufacturing at Wincanton, said: "We are delighted to be extending our relationship with Britvic. The soft drinks market has evolved considerably since we started working with Britvic in 1994, and we have continuously updated, evolved and improved our service to meet market demand. The heat wave last July was an exceptional challenge but due to our flexibility and capability to quickly scale up our operations we helped Britvic capitalise on one of its busiest periods in recent years."
