JACKSON COKE PLANT WILL GROW

JACKSON -- Some major changes have been announced for Coca- Cola Bottling Co.'s operations in Southeast Missouri following purchase of the local plants by Coca-Cola Enterprise of Atlanta, Ga.

The Jackson Coca-Cola facility will be remodeled and expanded and the Sikeston distribution center will close.

"It's all happening now," said Dale Clarke, new manager of the Jackson branch, which was previously owned by Coca-Cola Bottling of Northeast Arkansas at Jonesboro, Ark. "Plans for remodeling have been made."

Plans for staff expansion are also under way. Classified ads in the Southeast Missourian offer job opportunities for three sales representatives, two distribution supervisors and four clerks.

"We have a wider distribution area now," said Clarke, who comes to the Jackson facility from DuQuoin, Ill. "We'll also have additional Coke products."

The first hint of expansion activity at the Jackson Coca-Cola plant came in early December when Ron Hitt, a branch sales manager for Coca-Cola, submitted a letter to the Jackson City Council seeking its help in obtaining traffic signals at South Farmington (Route PP) and West Jackson Boulevard (Highway 72) because of anticipated heavier traffic.

"This intersection currently is pushed to its maximum limits without the aid of traffic signals," said the letter from Hitt. "With the current usage from our facility it is a very slow and sometimes dangerous process to pull out and turn at this intersection."

Hitt said in the letter that with the increase of business at the Jackson Coca-Cola facility a big increase of traffic was expected within a couple of months.

"Currently, we send aboaut 20 tractor-trailer rigs, 18 single-axle trucks, and a number of pickups and cars weekly through this intersection," said the letter. "These numbers are expected to triple."

Clarke agreed. "Our traffic will be much heavier," he said. "It should at least triple."

Negotiations by the Atlanta headquarters and Coca-Cola of Northeast Arkansas have been under way for several weeks. John Downs, a spokesman for Coca-Cola at Atlanta, announced this week that the purchase deal, which includes operations at Kennett, Jackson and Jonesboro, Ark., had been completed.

A Coca-Cola franchise has been in the Jackson area since 1924, when Alvin D. Milde acquired the franchise. Milde's father had founded Milde's Soda Co. in 1894. After obtaining the Coke franchise, it became Milde Coca-Cola Bottling Co., a name that remained until 1984 when the company became the Coca-Cola Bottling Co. of Southeast Missouri.

The firm moved to its new plant in Seabaugh Industrial Development Park more than a year later, moving from Barton Street on the Jackson town square in December 1986. The company remained under local ownership until June 1991, when it was sold to Coca-Cola Bottling Co. of Northeast Arkansas, Inc.

The Jonesboro, Ark.-based company's franchise territory adjoined that of the Southeast Missouri company, serving counties in Arkansas and Tennessee.