On West Coast, Pepsi and Coca-Cola bottlers face can and sugar shortages

Rave News
Managers at two soda bottling plants in the occupied Palestinian territory say Pepsi and Coca-Cola bottling plants in the West Bank are running out of cans and sugar due to the prolonged closure of the Jordanian border crossing.

Amid the latest disruption to global supply chains caused by conflict in the Middle East, a key trade crossing at Allenby Bridge has been largely closed to commercial traffic since a Jordanian gunman shot and killed three Israeli civilians in early September.

One factory bottles Pepsi, 7UP and Mirinda for sale in the Palestinian territories and neighboring countries. of.

Omari said the PepsiCo plant in Jericho ran out of material to can soft drinks about 15 days ago and has been unable to receive new cans or sugar for more than a month. Its sugar comes from Saudi Arabia, he said.

Imad Hindi, general manager of the national beverage company, said a Coca-Cola bottler in Ramallah was running out of some soft drink flavors and was without the normal supply of sugar and cans.


“If this continues, most private companies, including us, will be in a dead end,” Indy said in a WhatsApp message. PepsiCo did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Coca-Cola declined to comment. Bottlers are independent businesses, but sometimes American companies hold shares in them. Costs soar in Gaza and West Bank
Bottlers are the latest businesses to be hit by supply chain disruptions due to conflicts in the Middle East over the past year. Houthi attacks on Red Sea cargo ships have prompted some global consumer goods companies to reroute their goods from Asia around Africa.

“From Beirut to Iran to Gaza, running a normal business is really difficult and no one is immune,” said Paul Musgrave, associate professor of government at Georgetown University in Qatar. “You need sugar, you need cans, you need Man, you need power and this is all ruined.”

Indy, a manager at Coca-Cola bottler in the West Bank, said the cost of doing business in the Palestinian territories is about five times higher than in surrounding countries.

Omari said the Pepsi-Cola bottling franchise, which previously produced 60 million liters of beverages annually, has seen its production drop by about 35%. Without cans, it continues to use plastic bottles, but he said beverages in plastic bottles are less profitable.

He said high unemployment in the densely populated West Bank has hurt local families’ ability to buy PepsiCo drinks, which he said is the region’s dominant cola.

“Now we have weak supply and weak sales.”

Omari added that the factory now has 200 workers working in shifts every day, up from just three workers previously.

In addition to supply shortages, consumer-led boycotts of U.S. brands such as Coca-Cola and PepsiCo have hurt the company’s sales in Muslim-majority countries, where some consumers shy away from soft drinks.

PepsiCo Chief Executive Ramon Laguarta said in a conference call with investors on October 8 that “geopolitical tensions” were affecting the company’s business in the Middle East. “I don’t think that’s going to change in the next few months,” Laguarta said.

Coca-Cola will announce its third quarter 2024 financial results on October 23.

Israel launched an attack on Hamas in Gaza last October after Hamas launched an unprecedented attack on Israel that left 1,200 people dead and a further 250 kidnapped. Over the past year, more than 41,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza.

In Gaza, a $25 million Coca-Cola factory was destroyed. A spokesman for a Pepsi-Cola bottling plant said the plant was partially damaged and ceased operations in October last year.

Source link

Leave a comment
×

Hello!

Who do you want to talk to?

×