Ready for Christmas with 24 Million Bottles of Wine
Well, if you are not ready for Christmas yet, Europe’s biggest warehouse in Avonmouth, Bristol certainly is with a stock of 24 million bottles of wine with a value worth of £165 million.
The huge complex which is owned by Constellation Europe is big enough to park six jumbo jets and there is enough wine to fill seven Olympic swimming pools. If somebody had the time to lay the entire warehouse of bottles end to end they would find they would stretch from London to Mumbai - a journey of 4,480 miles!
With a team of 90 forklift drivers that move three million bottles of wine each day, (that’s equivalent to one truck laded down with pallets of alcohol driven out of the gates every seven minutes) the Company is now in the planning process of building an massive extension which will include a wine bottling plant that will be big enough to hold 14,000 double-decker buses.
The site of the of the £100 million new building will be a 35 acre building and once finished and opened in 2009 it will create 100 news jobs, triple the size of the Company’s present operations and will be able to store over 120 millions bottle of wine.
Pallets in the existing building are crammed in so tight from ceiling to floor and it is so tall ‘80 foot high’ that while building was ongoing, the crane being used had to be given clearance from air traffic control.
John Steels, Senior Vice President, Operations for Constellation Europe, said: "The warehousing and logistics team at Constellation do a fantastic job, especially at this time of year.
"They ensure our customers and their consumers get the wines and other drinks they will enjoy over the festive season."
UK being the Biggest Wine Buyers
Brands such as Hardys, Stowells, Blackthorn, Gaymer’s and Olde English Cider, Stone’s Ginger Wine and Babycham are all shipped in bulk from all across the world, saving on transport costs and help with cutting carbon emissions. The alcohol is then bottled with 90 per cent of the dispatched bottles destined for the UK.
As well as new buildings for storage, Constellation Europe will also be erecting new energy efficient offices for its 450 office based staff at Whitchurch, Bristol. They will have solar panels, wind turbines and low carbon impact heating systems installed.
Energy efficient as well as making a lot of wine drinkers very happy!