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Swire Coca-Cola USA's expanded Spokane Valley facility now can process almost double its case volume, says senior district sales manager Mike Branning.
| Ethan PackDraper, Utah-based Swire Coca-Cola USA is steadily growing almost a year after expanding its Spokane Valley distribution facility.
Total cases processed and distributed through the company’s 102,000-square-foot facility at 9705 E. Montgomery have increased 1.5% year over year, says Mike Branning, senior district sales manager at the facility. The facility currently processes about 4.3 million beverage cases per year.
“Prior to starting the project, there was continual annual growth,” he says. “We were operating over capacity in our warehouse and needed to fix that as soon as possible.”
Now, the warehouse can accommodate almost double the volume of product, or 8 million cases, per year.
Swire Coca-Cola USA is an independently owned bottler and distributor within the Coca-Cola distribution system with franchising rights to Coca-Cola products across its 11-state service area, Branning says. Greater regional demand for what Branning calls Coca-Cola’s functional beverages, including Powerade, Fairlife milk products, and energy drinks, is contributing to the company’s growth here, he notes.
The expansion project was valued at $22.4 million, the Journal previously reported. Construction ended in October 2025 after 16 months of work that began in July 2024. The project involved the renovation of 34,000 square feet of preexisting warehouse space in addition to the construction of 58,000 square feet of new warehouse space. The new warehouse footprint is 92,000 square feet in size.
Spokane-based Garco Construction Inc. served as general contractor on the project. Wolfe Architectural Group PS, also of Spokane, designed the facility. In total, Swire Coca-Cola USA tapped 31 Inland Northwest subcontractors and 18 suppliers for the project.
The new facility includes 10,100 square feet of new office space, occupied by distribution services, sales, account management, merchandising, and delivery teams, says Branning. The facility previously had around 5,000 square feet of office space before the renovation.
“We had only five working bay doors operating for our entire (delivery system), and running and operating with only five delivery docks was very restrictive and cumbersome to get trucks in and out,” he says. “With the new expansion to the building, we added 10 additional doors … and it's created a huge opportunity to create that flow without causing pinch points or anything like that.”
Other improvements include 275,000 kilowatts of rooftop solar power, which provides enough electricity to power the facility’s electric forklifts and other machines, he adds.
The Spokane Valley facility distributes Coca-Cola products throughout Eastern Washington and the North Idaho panhandle, Branning says. Recently, the facility began distributing an additional 600,000 cases of product a year into Washington's Central Basin area, to cities including Moses Lake and Othello.
Any restaurant, gas station, convenience store, or retailer within that range that sells Coca-Cola products, including Coca-Cola, Sprite, Fanta, Powerade, Monster Energy, and more, sources its product from Swire Coca-Cola’s Spokane Valley facility, says Branning.
The site also sells and distributes products to what Branning describes as "prestigious outlets," or the region’s large sporting or event venues, such as the Numerica Veterans Arena.
“Fountain, bottle, can — all of those impact our total business here,” he says. “All those cases are accounted for and distributed from our facility.”
Branning declines to disclose the profits generated by the facility, but says he expects to end 2026 with an increase over last year.
Beyond the renovation project, Swire Coca-Cola USA’s day-to-day impact on the region is significant, contends Ben Ferney, senior manager of external communications at the company. The business employs between 150 and 200 individuals seasonally at the Spokane Valley facility, and each direct job supports five additional jobs throughout Washington’s 5th Congressional District.
The company sources around $15 million in goods and services from suppliers in the district and contributes $131 million to the district’s gross domestic product, says Ferney. As demand increases, Swire Coca-Cola USA will hire additional employees.
"If we look at where we expanded from and what we're operating in, we can turn the volume up and would need to employ more people as time progresses," says Branning. "We're in that mode right now."
Employees are also encouraged to volunteer within the community, and the Spokane Valley facility is planning to partner with Second Harvest Inland Northwest again this year to collect food donations for the holiday season, Branning says.
“We're really proud to be local, and we're really proud to invest in and care for our local communities,” says Ferney.
Swire Coca-Cola USA operates in Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming. The company employs more than 8,000 full-time employees across its entire service area.
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