PepsiCo reveals £24m investment into Lincoln
PepsiCo has announced a £24m investment in its Lincoln Walkers factory to upgrade its facilities and secure the listed building’s future.
The investment will see existing machinery at the long-standing city centre site replaced by new equipment – including a compact packaging machine – creating training opportunities for employees and apprentices, some of whom will be upskilled in using the new equipment and technology.
The investment will increase capacity at the factory, enabling the team to produce more Quavers to help satisfy demand, as well as make space for new production lines.
It also follows PepsiCo’s multimillion-pound investment in its Skelmersdale and Coventry Walkers factories to install specialist compact packaging machinery, leading to a 30% reduction in outer packaging on average across snacks multipacks. The new equipment at Lincoln will help remove even more packaging from the firm’s supply chain.
Nigel Beilby, Lincoln site operations director, PepsiCo, said: “We’ve always had a strong heritage in the Midlands, providing jobs to almost 2,000 people in the region across our factories in Lincoln, Leicester and Coventry. For decades, our Lincoln factory has brought much-loved Quavers snacks to consumers up and down the country, and with this state-of-the-art technology, we’re confident that the site will continue to serve the nation for many years to come.”
Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng said: “It’s brilliant to see PepsiCo doubling-down on its commitment to Lincoln through this significant investment in the city centre factory Walkers has called home for more than half a century. This investment will help to deliver on our plan to spread opportunity across the Midlands by future-proofing the jobs of the factory’s outstanding employees by training them to use state of the art equipment, and further bolstering the workforce through their apprenticeship scheme.”
Alongside the Lincoln investment, over £1m has also been committed to Walkers’ Coventry factory – which produces snacks such as Doritos, Wotsits, French Fries, Squares, Sunbites and Cheetos – for additional equipment to maintain production during the work at Lincoln.
The new equipment will be installed at Lincoln in mid-2022, with initial work now underway.
