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New PET Line for Coca-Cola Bottler Produces 26,000+ bottles/hr

Argentinian Coca-Cola bottler Reginald Lee works with same supplier for four bottling lines, the most recent of which handles hot-fill and carbonated drinks with efficiency and a high degree of automation.

Innopack Kisters
One of the four turnkey KHS lines at Reginald Lee is an Innopack Kisters shrink packer. (Source: KHS Group)

The bright yellow trucks from the 1940s, on which the Coca-Cola brand swept into Argentina in triumph over 75 years ago, bear witness to a long tradition. Lovingly cared for and polished to a shine, they stand proud in the production shop at Reginald Lee, one of the few independent partners of the Coca-Cola system in South America. In August 1942, the first Coca-Cola bottles, then only familiar to Argentinians from Hollywood movies, rolled into the country on 15 yellow trikes and four trucks like these. Just a few months later, Reginald Lee was founded, acting as a national pioneer in the distribution of Coca-Cola.

Reginald Lee teamA dedicated team, from l. to r.: Jorge Oleskow, KHS Argentina, with Reginald Lee’s Plant Manager, Juan José Basso, and production manager Orlando Diz. (Source: KHS Group)In 1958, it was the first business to be granted a license to make products by the U.S. beverage producer in Argentina. In Ranelagh in the exurbs of the capital, a bottling plant was set up that grew as fast as the area Reginald Lee supplied. To start with, the company concentrated merely on the south of Buenos Aires; today it serves over 4.6 million people in an area measuring around 100,000 square kilometers by supplying 27,000 customers, most of them supermarkets and retailers. This gives Reginald Lee a market share of about 50% in the third-largest metropolitan area in Latin America after Mexico City and São Paulo.

Says Reginald Lee Production Manager Orlando Diz, “We’re very proud to be a real family business. The fact that the owners are here at the plant every day of the week and pitch in with everyone else has a very positive effect on our corporate culture.”

The current boss of the approximately 800 people who work here is David Lee, the founder’s grandson. He’s also president of the Asociación de Fabricantes Argentinos de Coca-Cola (AFAC), in which Argentina’s other bottlers are organized, among them Coca-Cola FEMSA, Arca Continental, and Andina. His words carry weight at the group headquarters in Atlanta.

For Dortmund systems supplier KHS, this isn’t the only reason why Reginald Lee is a very special customer. “We’ve had close ties with the company for over 10 years now,” says Jorge Oleskow, Area Sales Manager for KHS Argentina. “After we’d sold the bottler their first [KHS] stretch blow molder and commissioned it, Reginald Lee then successively converted all of its PET lines to KHS technology. We don’t have a situation like this anywhere else in Latin America. This means that Reginald Lee acts as a great reference for us.”

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