SPARTANBURG, S.C. (AP) - A Spartanburg mainstay for more than a century will close its doors Dec. 15.
The Spartanburg Coca-Cola plant will close as part of its new owner’s decision to move operations to Piedmont in Greenville County.
On Oct. 2, Coca-Cola Bottling Co. Consolidated of Charlotte, N.C., purchased the Spartanburg franchise and its distribution territory from Coca-Cola United, which owned the Spartanburg franchise area and still owns the building at 500 W. Main St.
Many of the 110 employees who work at the Spartanburg plant have either accepted jobs at the Piedmont plant or gone on to work elsewhere, said Tony Price, Southeast project manager for Coca-Cola United.
“I certainly have mixed feelings,” said Price, who started working for Coke in 1979. “I spent 38 years at Spartanburg Coca-Cola, trying to make it a community partner. I hate to let that go, and the teammates who were with me - many 30-years-plus. But it’s a business decision the company made. You just move forward.”
Starr said employees were not surprised because the agreement between Consolidated and United was first announced last year. When the deal was finalized Oct. 2, about 25 local employees were laid off, he said.
“We had 110 employees before we sold the franchise,” he said. “Some left by their own choice, another 30 work from home and are living in Spartanburg.”
He said only 15 distribution drivers will be working on Dec.15 from Spartanburg, and they will then have to decide whether to continue working by driving to Piedmont in southern Greenville County every day.
One driver, Daniel Allen, said he accepted the move to Piedmont, but his cooler and vendor delivery area is still Spartanburg. Allen said he came to work for the Spartanburg Coke plant more than four years ago and will miss the friendships.
“It was family-oriented,” he said. “I fell in love with the way we worked together.”
Jarrid Lemieux and Stephen Hardin are sales representatives who now work from their home in Spartanburg. Lemieux put in 17 years and Hardin 20 years at the local plant.
“I will be driving by here saying I used to work there,” Hardin said. “I learned a lot here.”
Price said most of the plant’s inventory has already been moved to Piedmont.
Starr said about three years ago Coca-Cola Co. in Atlanta decided to get out of the distribution business and sold many of its franchises. The United franchise in Birmingham, Ala., owned the Spartanburg distribution business, whose territory included several areas in the Southeast.
Most of South Carolina was covered by the Consolidated franchise in Charlotte, he said. Since Spartanburg and a Bluffton operation was acquired Oct. 2, Consolidated now owns the distribution territory of all of South Carolina, he said.
Its Piedmont franchise serves western South Carolina and northeastern Georgia.
Consolidated has acquired distribution territory in Arkansas, northwestern Mississippi, and Memphis, Tenn. It also acquired manufacturing facilities in Memphis and West Memphis, Ark.
Coca-Cola Consolidated is the largest independent bottler in the United States, making, selling and distributing Coke and more than 300 brands across 15 states to more than 66 million customers, according to its website.
Coca-Cola in Spartanburg dates back to 1902 when R.A. Douglas signed an agreement to bottle and sell Coke in the Upstate. Bottling operations began March 3, 1903, in the back room of a cigar and candy store in the Spartan Inn building downtown.
When the Spartan Inn burned in 1910, operations moved to an industrial building behind the original location. In 1913, a modern plant that included a barn and facilities to care for the horses that pulled the delivery wagons was built on Trimmier Street.
In the early 1930s, James Frank Collins - an architect who designed the Masonic Temple in downtown Spartanburg and Andrews Field House at Wofford College - was hired to design a new bottling plant.
In 1936, Spartanburg Coca-Cola moved to its current location at 500 W. Main St.
Bottling operations ended several years ago as the plant transitioned to distribution only.
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