The Coca-Cola Company has set out more plans to invest in its production of Fairlife milk in the US.

A $650m project will see Coca-Cola add more production lines at its Fairlife manufacturing facility in Coopersville in Michigan.

In a brief statement, Coca-Cola said the construction work for the two lines is expected to start later this year.

The expansion work will add 245,000 square feet to the site.

Coca-Cola wants to start commercial production on the new lines in 2028.

Just Food has asked for further details.

The US drinks giant is also set to start production at a new Fairlife site in New York state later this year. The investment in Webster was announced in 2023.

Coca-Cola has another Fairlife facility in Goodyear in Arizona.

Fairlife was founded by Mike and Sue McCloskey in 2012 as a partnership with Coca-Cola and dairy cooperative Select Milk Producers, which was set up in 1994 by the McCloskeys.

At the start of 2020, Coca-Cola bought out the remaining shares in the venture, increasing its minority stake of 42.5% to 100%. 

At an investor event hosted by Citi earlier this month, Coca-Cola president and CFO John Murphy was asked, amid the planned investment in Fairlife, how the company planned to continue to gain market share.

“To have leadership in a category that is growing and that is sustaining relevance to an even broader consumer set is something that we’re very pleased with and it has actually created, as you well know, the capacity challenge,” Murphy said.

“We see the opportunity ahead to be pretty robust. You can never sit on the laurels of what you’ve accomplished to-date but it’s a pretty darn good place to start from.

“As we go forward, I would see the innovation opportunity in this category to be quite strong. I know from my conversations with our team that they are chomping at the bit to have even more capacity to continue to drive an even more relevant portfolio.”