A very merry Christmas: Europe's largest wine warehouse, Constellation Park, has stocked up for Christmas with an incredible 57 million bottles of wine to come with demand during the festive seasonThe wines are bottled on-site after being shipped from abroad in huge 25,000-litre vats to save costs and the plant is currently filling 800 bottles per minute with some of the UK's best loved wine brands including Hardys, Kumala, Echo Falls and Banrock Station.
Each bottle of wine is photographed 18 times after bottling to ensure it contains the exact amount required.
December 9 will be the day most cases are shipped for the festive season. Approximately one in every 14 bottles of wine consumed this Christmas in the UK will be made by Constellation Europe and Hardys will be among the most popular wine brands enjoyed during Christmas dinner.
The company has increased its workforce by 20 per cent in the run-up to Christmas to help cope with the extra workload.
Covering 858,000 sq ft with a roof big enough to park 4,000 cars the internal volume of the building is equivalent to 14,000 double decker buses. The £100 million plant, which took three years to build, was opened earlier this year and uses forklift trucks guided by lasers.
Every day 550 lorries will arrive, load up and depart for stores in the UK and Europe.
John Steels, senior vice president of Constellation Europe, said: 'Building and commissioning the site was an enormous task involving a small, dedicated team of staff and specialists.
'A purpose-built facility on a single site enables us to improve efficiency and have the capacity we need to support business growth.'
By shipping wine in bulk and bottling in the UK, the project saves on transport costs and carbon emissions needed to move thousands of tonnes of glass across the globe.
The energy efficiency savings save the equivalent of 250,000 kilometres travelled in HGVs.
source:http://believe-or-not.blogspot.com/2009/11/largest-wine-warehouse-million-bottles.html
