Investment at juice producer AMC strengthens North Sea Port's role as European food port
Together with its partners, AMC Natural Drinks Group, the European leader in its market, has spent money to further extend its North Sea Port facility. Vlissingen is home to the group's largest packaging plant. It has been equipped with additional, high-tech filling lines for vegetable juices, massive tanks for storing the basic products when they arrive by ship and a sustainable cold storage facility for the finished products.
Even more firmly anchored in the port
This expansion has added 15,000 m² to the facility in North Sea Port, taking it to 95,000 m². AMC can now package more than 600 million litres of chilled fruit and vegetable juices there annually. Accounting for 60% of the group's total, the Zeeland plant is now by far its biggest for packaging its beverages. And the fruit and vegetable juices generate a lot of jobs; AMC currently employs over 500 people there. And sustainability is ever more important. The plant already runs on 100% renewable electricity. And by increasing the proportion of the juice transported by sea-going vessel, a further 500 tons ofCO2 emissions have been cut.
"The opening of this extension to our facility is a very important milestone towards the goal of growing in the plant-based beverage category and securing a leading position in Europe", explains Antonio Muñoz Beraza, founder and CEO of AMC Natural Drinks Group.
Daan Schalck, CEO of North Sea Port, has welcomed the investment: "North Sea Port has again put itself a little more firmly on the map as a European food port. The significant storage capacity available, the variety of food products processed at our port or distributed from here and our excellent multimodal connections with the rest of Europe have all contributed to that. Food is one of the spearhead sectors in our strategic plan, so AMC's new investment is very much in line with our own ambitions."
Your smoothie... from AMC
AMC Vlissingen opened its location at North Sea Port in 2013. It chose the port because of its excellent location for distributing its products to the main European markets. Those markets are in central and northern Europe, including the Netherlands, Belgium, the United Kingdom, Germany and Poland. AMC currently serves 70 of Europe's biggest retailers, including Marks & Spencer, Sainsbury's, Lidl, Biedronka and Albert Heijn, as well as the major plant-based beverage brands.
