Wincanton has started operations at a new Customer Fulfilment Centre (CFC, also known as a ‘dark store’) for Waitrose.com in Greenford, West London, making it the first supply chain partner to create a dark store for grocery home deliveries in the UK.
The dark store will create 800 new jobs when it is fully running, with staff picking and packing 1.25 million products a week for delivery in 150 new vans.
When fully running later this year the centre will deliver 25,000 Waitrose.com orders each week, which means there will be five times more online slots each week in London than before the pandemic.
James Wroath, CEO at Wincanton said: “As the first supply chain partner to create a dark store for grocery home deliveries in the UK, this is an exciting growth opportunity for Wincanton. We look forward to providing Waitrose.com customers in London with the highest levels of service.”
Laura Burbedge, Waitrose.com Director added: “Waitrose.com now accounts for a fifth of our total business, compared to six percent a year ago. But despite this huge growth we know there are still more people who would like to shop online with us – so this new centre is a significant step in our future plans.”
