Woolworths Doubles Down On Warehouse Space

Woolworths will develop a $400-million distribution centre at Wetherill Park to replace a Minchinbury warehouse and accommodate the growing popularity of online grocery shopping.

The retail giant experienced a 35 per cent increase in online sales last year, equating to a total of $961 million or 8 per cent of total supermarket sales, which it said has necessitated the development of further warehousing.

Woolworths will also build a $64-million warehouse and 24-hour distribution centre at Auburn, which the NSW government recently approved.

In a statement, Woolworths chief executive Brad Banducci said the new 76,000sq m multi-storey fresh distribution centre at Wetherill Park would service more than 280 Woolworths stores in NSW from 2023.

“Wetherill Park is close to a large number of our stores, suppliers and transport providers, making it an ideal base for our fresh food distribution in NSW,” he said.

“The co-location of fresh and chilled operations across a multi-storey site will also help remove more than 11,000 truck movements off Sydney roads each year, delivering environmental, traffic and road safety benefits to the community.”

Construction of the temperature-controlled warehouse would create 500 jobs, and the project would support up to 700 ongoing jobs.

Another Woolworths warehouse and distribution centre at Auburn has been approved on a 32,400sq m site.

The 24-hour facility would also provide a customer-facing grocery collection facility to accommodate the rise in demand for online grocery shopping.

The $64-million, two-storey warehouse would be 17.8m high with a gross floor area of 19,912sq m, and would generate 150 construction jobs and 350 operational jobs.

According to application documents, Woolworths was expanding its network of customer fulfilment centres to fulfil and dispatch online delivery orders and improve the operational efficiencies.

Groundwork was expected to start immediately with construction due to be completed in 2023.