Keeping the iced tea flowing

Bottling plants for soft drinks and sodas have been around for generations, but few operate on the same scale as Arizona Beverage Co.’s new facility in Keasbey, New Jersey. The 1.2 million-square-foot beverage production facility has six production lines that occupy 680,000 square feet of space, supported by a 400,000-square-foot mixing and distribution center. Inside, workers bottle multiple beverage products—including the company’s signature product, Arizona Iced Tea—and pack them into shelf-ready cases for shipment nationwide. When completed, the plant will have the capacity to produce more than 50 million cases annually, shipping out over 200 truckloads per day.

The state-of-the-art logistics operations management center is being run by Bettaway Supply Chain Services, a third-party logistics service provider (3PL) based in nearby South Plainfield. To help keep the iced tea flowing, the firm manages a variety of supply chain activities for the plant, including inbound and outbound logistics, raw materials and packaging, carrier procurement, dock scheduling, and just-in-time trucking shuttle services to company DCs. 

Bettaway says technology is key to the center’s operations, including a solar-generation array for electricity, warehouse management and transportation optimization systems, and a high-density automated storage and retrieval system (AS/RS) that autonomously picks and positions mixed beverage loads. “This is a significant investment for Bettaway that enables us to efficiently support the continued growth of Arizona Iced Tea with state-of-the-art technology, resources, and capabilities,” Bettaway President John Vaccaro said in a statement.