Cott's Facilities

Approximately 95% of Cott's beverages are produced in North America. The beverages are manufactured in facilities that either Cott or a third-party manufacturers that they only have long-term agreements with. Cott does manufacture almost all of their United Kingdom and Mexican beverages in facilities that they either own or lease. Cott does not have their own production facilities in areas such as, Continental Europe, therefore they rely on third parties to produce and distribute their products in this area.

Cott's products are then are either picked up by their customers at the facilities or delivered by Cott, a common carrier, or third-party distributors to our customer’s distribution centers or to retail locations.

Cott's current financial situation puts them at a risk since they do not own all of their properties. The third parties that they have contracts with could decide not to renew for the upcoming year which would put them in a vulnerable position to find another party which in the mean time could drastically cut production and sales.

Wal-Mart terminated their contract early this year without cause which is suppose to be phased out over a period of three years. Cott's sales have already drastically declined due to the cut in space at Wal-Mart stores.

It will be interesting to see how hard this hits Cott. The company had a net loss of $122,800,000 for 2008. The net loss for 2007 was $71,400,000. The increase in the net loss probably is due to increase competitive nature, lower gross margins, and rising costs.