Ribbon cutting held Tuesday afternoon for Pepsi Cola’s facility at business park

When Pepsi Cola Bottling Company located their newest facility inside the Southern Kentucky Business Park in Corbin, one thing they purposefully did was build it to accommodate growth.

Tuesday was a big day for Pepsi Cola Bottling Company of Corbin, which held a ribbon cutting ceremony for their new distribution center, located in the Southern Kentucky Business Park. Top, Pepsi Cola Corbin Chairwoman of the Board Diane Gabay and President Mary Walker cut the ribbon in front of the facility.

“We tried to think of the future with this so there are 12 loading docks in the back, which is more than typically most Pepsi facilities put. We wanted to make sure we had enough for the future,” said Pepsi Cola Bottling Company Corbin General Manager Buddy Lewis.

Tuesday afternoon, Pepsi Cola Corbin officials held a ribbon cutting for their new 64,000 square foot facility, which has room to add on an additional 25,000 square-feet in the future, if need be.

The family-owned business opened in 1938 and will celebrate its 85^th anniversary this fall.

Lewis noted that Tuesday’s event was 61 years in the making because that is how long it has been since Pepsi Cola Corbin, as a company, moved into a facility that was totally dedicated to them.

Lewis noted one thing that makes the new Pepsi facility kind of unique is that it has push back racking, which enables them to hold about 400 pallets of product in a 5,000-square foot area.

“We are able to hold product like Gatorade – that we don’t produce – so we don’t run out,” Lewis said.

The building also has technology so that machinery can pick up about 80,000 cases of product each month, which employees don’t physically have to lift.

The Southern Kentucky Chamber of Commerce presented Pepsi with a membership plaque for the new building Tuesday.

Pepsi’s facility on 18^th Street/Cumberland Falls Highway will remain open. Up until now, the company has had production and distribution together at that facility, but now it will be a production-only facility with distribution taking place at the new building.

“We split that so our production could increase. It increased 40 percent last year. This allows us room to grow. We were out of room to grow,” he noted.

Lewis credited the company’s partnership with the Southeast Industrial Development Authority as one major reason Tuesday’s event was possible.

“I want to thank the community because if it hadn’t been for your support and your commitment to us over the last 85 years, the things we are doing now, we would not be able to do,” Lewis added.

Several area dignitaries were in attendance, including state representatives Tom O’Dell Smith and Nick Wilson, Knox County Judge-Executive Mike Mitchell, Whitley County Judge-Executive Pat White Jr., and Kentucky Senate President Robert Stivers.

“To the family and business of Pepsi, thank you all so much for your investment and expansion in this region,” Stivers noted during the ceremony.

Stivers said that this industrial park was one of the original coal county industrial parks, which were funded by coal severance taxes about 20 years ago.

“There were several of them that were created and bought up land. Infrastructure was put in to a certain extent, but is the only one – soon I hope – that will be totally filled. The other ones have not had the successes this one has had,” Stivers noted.

Stivers credited Corbin Economic Development Director Bruce Carpenter and his group of employees, board members and officials for recruiting individuals and companies to come here.

Stivers noted that the road to the park and much of the infrastructure for it wasn’t completed six years ago. He credited former Gov. Steve Beshear with helping get it all completed.

“It is a welcome addition to see this park in the situation that it is in. It does a lot, not just for Knox County, Whitley County and the City of Corbin, but it generates about $50,000 a year in occupational tax that is distributed to all the counties that participated in this development some 20 years ago,” Stivers said.

“When you think about the impact of what is being opened here today, it doesn’t just impact a small siloed area. It impacts about a seven-county region with the jobs it creates, the taxes and the opportunity that come from here.”

Several corporate dignitaries were also present for Tuesday’s event.

At the close of the ceremony, Pepsi Cola Corbin Chairwoman of the Board Diane Gabay and President Mary Walker cut the ribbon to officially open the new facility.