Diageo to expand ready-to-drink beverage production worth $80 million in U.S

Spirits group Diageo said on Thursday that it would install two can filling lines at a new plant in Plainfield, Illinois spending $80 million to boost the production of fast-growing ready-to-drink beverages.

The new facility will make more than 25 million cases of ready-to-drink beverages every year which will include Smirnoff seltzers and spirits-based cocktails from Crown Royal and Ketel One Botanicals.

The company said that the commercial production is expected to start by the summer of 2021.

In January, the company said that it saw the sales of ready-to-drink beverages rose 26% in North America in the second quarter of 2020, the fastest-growing category for Diageo in the region during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Competition has been heating up for hard seltzers as liquor companies start to take benefit of a category where sales have doubled every year since 2016 in the United States.

Earlier this year, Diageo said it would buy Lone River Ranch Water, the maker of hard seltzer brand, while rival Anheuser-Busch InBev announced a more than $1 billion investment in its U.S. manufacturing facilities to increase the production of hard seltzers.