US glass bottling giant invests €30m in Scotland

The investment, which incudes a £3.9m grant from Scottish Enteprise, will safe safeguard 600 jobs at the 260-year-old Scottish plant, which makes the bottles for some of the most famous Scotch whisky.

Erik Bouts, chief executive of O-I Europe, said the investment, which will take two years to complete, will be used to upgrade Alloa’s design, new product development, glass colour and decoration facilities, including embossing.

Mr Bouts added that the new investment would make the 600 jobs at the plant safe.

With a vote on Scottish independence looming, Mr Bouts said the outcome, either way, would not affect the company’s investment in the country.

“We are politically inactive,” he said. “We’re business people and we want to serve our customers.

“We are used to uncertainty as we work in a lot of markets around the world that are always changing.”

The investment in Scotland, the company’s second largest plant in Europe is part of a wider plant by O-I to invest £230m upgrading its 35 plants across the region, to ensure bottles are made need to the customer.

“We are trying to be as close to customers as possible, so make whisky bottles in Scotland and we are making beer bottles as close as possible to beer customers,” Mr Bouts said.

“We used to make everything in every factory and as a result there were long transportation times and significant logistics costs. So we have been reconfiguring our whole manufacturing footprint and are trying to be as close to our customers as possible.”

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