Foodstuffs North Island (NI) is moving its primary Distribution Centre (DC) and Support Office from its long term home in Roma Road in Mount Roskill and building an exciting and innovative complex at The Landing, Auckland Airport.
Chief Executive Chris Quin, says Foodstuffs North Island has been at its current site for 53 years and is rapidly outgrowing that space. “We’ve been an important part of New Zealanders’ lives and communities for nearly 100 years and we plan on being around for many years to come. To do this we need better facilities to deliver what our customers at PAK’nSAVE, New World, Four Square, Gilmours and Liquorland and Fresh Collective need from us for the future. We’re planning significant future growth across the business and our success depends on being nimble, efficient and continuing to attract the best talent, who work in an agile and collaborative way.”
Foodstuffs has made some big changes over the past few years, guided by its purpose of making sure New Zealanders get more out of life. Foodstuffs’ supermarket customers, along with Gilmours and Liquorland, have seen major changes including the introduction of New World Clubcard, online shopping, support for Kiwi children in partnership with Eat My Lunch and new and improved Pams and Value products. The team has also been working on major sustainability programmes designed to drive waste out of the business and look after New Zealand’s environment.
Behind the scenes Foodstuffs has been working hard to improve efficiency and allow the business to keep prices low and quality and service high.
“Key to our success is developing a world-class supply chain to ensure we have a great offer for our customers in store and online every day. This new 65,000m2 distribution centre and 5 Greenstar rated office complex will be at the heart and will enable our Co-op to work more collaboratively and effectively.”
It’s also proposed to consolidate three Foodstuffs facilities in Auckland into one best-in-class complex. The Co-op will continue to operate two DCs and a Support Centre in Palmerston North and a Support Centre in Wellington.
As part of these changes Foodstuffs North Island is proposing to close the Rotorua DC at the end of 2020 and move those operations to the new DC. Quin says, “In making the decision to build the new DC, we have been looking at all the options possible to make the Upper North Island operations as efficient as possible and fit for purpose over the next 30 years. Long term, we believe that the best option is to support our Upper North Island stores with one purpose-built Ambient DC.
“We wanted to share our proposal to close the Rotorua DC with our teams early in the project. If the proposal does go ahead, we feel it would be the right thing to do to give the team lots of notice and time to plan for the change.”
