Tucked away near Cross Road and Walmart in Waterford is a large warehouse that supplies drinks for a major portion of Connecticut.

The Coca-Cola Distribution Center is owned by Coke Northeast, a franchise of the Coca-Cola Company. Coke Northeast serves Coca-Cola products for all of New England as well as some of upstate New York, serving roughly 86 million cases of drinks annually to more than 80,000 customers, according to Andy Lincoln, office manager at the Waterford Distribution Center.

The Waterford facility is relatively new, having been completed in 2011. Previously, distribution had been based out of an old building on Bank Street in New London, which is now the Mike’s Famous Harley-Davidson shop, and still carries memories of the building’s past through engravings on the sides.

The new building contains both offices and a gigantic warehouse. All of the bottling for drinks for Coke Northeast is done at production centers in Londonderry, N.H., and East Hartford. The finished products are then shipped in large trucks to distribution centers, such as the one located in Waterford. From there, trucks will deliver drink orders to supermarkets, restaurants and other customers.

At the Waterford location, approximately 3 million cases are distributed every year. A team of roughly 20 salespeople get in contact with buyers from East Haven all the way over to Newport in southern Rhode Island.

Once orders are placed, workers within the warehouse use machines to move the large palettes into place to be loaded onto delivery trucks. Six 18-wheel trucks are used for making bulk delivery orders to larger establishments such as supermarkets. The remaining trucks are smaller, and about 15 to 20 are sent out to deliver smaller orders each day to places such as gas stations or smaller restaurants. Any place in the area that serves Coke products most likely got its supply of drinks from this location.

The center distributes mostly Coca-Cola products, including Sprite and Powerade. But it also delivers many beverages for which Coca-Cola does not own the rights.

For instance, Canada Dry and Dr. Pepper were two drinks spotted in the warehouse. Also distributed are drinks such as bottled Dunkin’ Donuts coffees.

Demand for beverages fluctuates with the seasons, with a much larger demand in the summertime, especially in places such as Newport with many seasonal restaurants. To compensate for the increased demand, the distribution center takes on many seasonal employees in the summer.

As a brand, Coca-Cola is constantly developing and marketing new drinks to sell. All over the warehouse were marketing posters for the new Cherry Vanilla drink being rolled out nationwide. The drink was inspired by data taken from Coca-Cola freestyle machines found in restaurants such as Moes and Wendy’s. The computers within the machines track what drink flavors customers mix the most and the results influence the creation of new drinks. They follow trends across the nation, such as rolling out drinks with less sugar and fewer calories.

All drinks that cannot be sent to restaurants but are still safe to drink are donated to groups in the community, where they can be used in fundraising efforts. The bottling plants also are zero-waste facilities with a 96% recycling rate, and there are methods for processing recycled plastic in the plants as well.

Many employees expressed their contentment working for Coke Northeast, Lincoln included. He has worked for the company for more than 30 years now and says that he is just one of many long-time employees.

Lincoln suggested that anybody looking for a summer job who is 18 years of age should feel free to come down to the distribution center and learn more about the work they do.

Owen Seltzer is a journalism student at Waterford High School and is part of the Times’ young journalist initiative.