Diageo Global Supply Centre

The Diageo Global Supply Centre is a main spirits manufacturing and bottling facility in Scotland, owned by Diageo; as well as much whisky, it bottles Smirnoff vodka.

History
The site was opened by Distillers Company (Bottling Services). The Distillers £35m plant was due to be completed by 1973.

The site would cost £7-8m, with 900 jobs, over 162 acres. Outline planning permission was given in November 1970, followed by approval of the DCL site in February 1971 by the Secretary of State for Scotland.

Planning approval for the bottling plant was given at Cupar in August 1971. By October 1971, the cost of the site had increased to £10m, for the 24 maturation racked warehouses. Each 100,000 sq-yd (five acres) warehouse would cost £300,000. Blending began in May 1973, with bottling starting later in the year.

A plant at Markinch closed in 1983, with bottling being moved to Banbeath, with the loss of 340 workers.

In 1985 site had 1100 workers. In the early 1990s the site was known as United Distillers Bottling and Blending. In 1996 it was known as the Banbeath Bottling Plant.

In 1998 Diageo closed its Scottish HQ and moved to Harlow in Essex, and a gin plant in Essex closed as well. Other spirits plants in Scotland were at the Shieldhall Plant (opened in 1979) on Renfrew Road in Glasgow. and Kilmarnock (the plant closed 2012) in Ayrshire. A bottling plant on Gooseholm Road in Dumbarton closed in 2000.

Construction
Work began in April 1971.

The site had a large expansion in 2001 for the ready to drink production, and an £86m expansion in 2012.

Structure
The site has a small distillery. The site is Diageo's largest bottling facility.

Operation
It would require 150,000 gallons of water per day.

Whisky would be stored for five years, before being bottled, but that could vary from four to twelve years. Scotch whisky had to be matured for at least three years.

Each warehouse had 55,000 casks. Around 12 million gallons of whisky could be blended per year. There would be sixteen bottling lines, producing from 150 to 600 cases of whisky per hour. Due to different laws in respective countries, there could be 4000 variations in how decoration was arranged on whisky cases.

There would be around 900 employees, of whom 600 would be women. The total wage cost per year was £1.5m, in 1973.