"Coca-Cola is a cool drink. And it's cool for the climate that Coca-Cola drinks in Germany are now also transported over long distances by rail," says Dr. Sigrid Nikutta. As DB Group Board Member for Rail Freight, she notes: "For consumer goods, the mix of long rail transfers and the last mile by truck to the customer is ideal. Together, we have created a logistics network for Coca-Cola which, with 13 locations, is unique in the consumer goods industry in Germany."

Coca-Cola and DB Cargo began a pilot project back in 2016 to transfer long-distance domestic German routes to rail. Since then, the transports have been successively expanded: "We largely produce regionally and have predominantly short delivery routes. Where this is not possible, we are relying even more heavily on rail. This year, we are therefore building a network of 19 routes between our sites with DB Cargo," says Tilmann Rothhammer, Managing Director Customer Service and Supply Chain. "This is primarily possible because we can order rail freight transports from DB Cargo just as quickly as road transports - in just three days. As demand can fluctuate suddenly, this flexibility is particularly important for us as a consumer goods company. It helps us to shift more to rail and achieve our ambitious goal of a climate-neutral business by 2040."


Facts and figures at a glance: Coca-Cola by rail with DB Cargo
- Rail freight transport on long-distance routes between locations in Germany expanded since 2016
o 2020: 1.7 million truck kilometers and 1,000 tons of CO2 saved
o 2019: 1.4 million truck kilometers and 700 tons of CO2 saved
o 2018-2020: doubling the number of locations in the rail network from five to eleven
o 2018-2020: doubling the number of routes in the rail network from four to nine