As part of Molson Coors’ long-term plan to invest in its capabilities to bring more hard seltzer production in-house, the company has broken ground on a new $65 million variety packing warehouse in Fort Worth, Texas.
The investment is expected to allow the Fort Worth Brewery to remove third-party vendors for final pack assembly, which the company believes will help alleviate shipping costs and improve time to market.
“This expansion truly represents the next step toward strengthening our in-house hard seltzer capabilities, as its one of many recent investments we made at Fort Worth aimed at growing our above premium portfolio and transforming the company’s offerings to meet consumers’ changing preferences,” said Jim Crawford, vice president and plant manager, Molson Coors.
The roughly 200,000 square foot warehouse is expected to enhance the brewery’s ability to internalize storage, packaging, shipping, and logistics of variety packed can beverages, while bringing additional jobs to the Fort Worth market. It will include a state-of-the-art variety pack system capable of packaging up to six different flavors in 12- or 24-pack configurations and repacking up to 1.5 million barrels annually.
The new warehouse may also be used for future brands the company develops as part of its ambition to expand its portfolio beyond the beer aisle.
The projects represent the latest investment by Molson Coors to grow its capabilities. In 2020, the company invested in capital projects to expand its U.S. hard seltzer production capacity by about 400%. In 2021, it quadrupled Canadian hard seltzer production and invested another $35 million in the U.K. to make a range of upgrades, including adding its first hard seltzer canning line. Construction is slated to be completed later this year.
