HONGKONG people drink a staggering 300 million litres of soft drink a year, of which Swire Bottlers produces over half at its Sha Tin plant.
Swire controls 80 per cent of the local market of the carbonated beverages, the fizzy drinks.
Apart from the world's biggest selling soft drink, Coca-Cola - for which Swire has been the authorised local bottler for the past 26 years - the company also produces Sprite, Fanta, Hi-C carton drinks, including lemon tea and soya bean milk, Schweppes and the recently introduced Nescafe in cans.
From its bottling plant in Sha Tin, the biggest of its type in the world, Swire rattles out some 38 million cases of soft drinks a year and 1.4 million postmix tanks which go into restaurants and fast food outlets.
With one of the world's fastest canning lines, it can produce some 2,000 cans every minute.
Opened in 1991 the $780 million plant, including $120 million canline, is said to be the tallest bottling facility in the world. Although 18 storeys it is in fact equivalent to a 57-storey commercial building.