Waitrose awards ‘develop and operate’ contract to 3PL for eComm DC

As part of an initial five-year contract, Wincanton will develop and operate the CFC in West London, accelerating Waitrose & Partners’ expansion in online grocery home delivery. The partnership approach with the Waitrose team will accelerate the implementation, ensuring the CFC is fully operational in the current financial year.

The new contract will build on the heritage of Wincanton’s long-standing operations for Waitrose’s supermarkets, and the Group’s market-leading expertise in home delivery, eFulfilment and food logistics. Wincanton will be responsible for operating the CFC (or ‘dark store’) and delivery to Waitrose customers in the West London area

This transformational new contract positions Wincanton as a leader in a market currently experiencing exponential growth. Furthermore, it will involve the creation of 800 jobs and will offer Waitrose.com customers an additional 25,000 orders per week.

James Wroath, CEO at Wincanton, commented: “This partnership with Waitrose to deliver groceries to customers’ homes is a fantastic opportunity for us to combine our existing capabilities in a new way, in order to accelerate Waitrose & Partners’ online growth. We will be the first third party logistics operator to enter an exciting and rapidly expanding market.”

Andrew Murphy, John Lewis Partnership Executive Director, Operations, added: “This builds on a 20-year relationship with Wincanton from which we know them to be a collaborative and agile business partner. Our companies' complementary experience will help us further accelerate our online growth and respond well to significant customer demand.”

The fulfilment centre in Greenford is the third such site in London for Waitrose. Once established, the centre will create 800 jobs for the local area, and will mean London shoppers will have the potential to choose from four-times as many Waitrose.com delivery slots compared to just the start of this year.

Across the country, Waitrose.com orders are mostly picked and delivered to customers from a network of Waitrose shops, covering nearly 90% of active UK postcodes. To help meet high demand in London, Waitrose already has dedicated online fulfilment centres in Coulsdon and Enfield (the latter opening last month, 7 May), which supplement Waitrose deliveries from selected shops in London.

Waitrose executive director James Bailey said: “While we’ve already pulled forward our online expansion plans by six months we know there are still lots of people who want to shop online with us and currently can’t. This is especially the case in London, where we’ve seen a significant and prolonged surge in demand for our online offer. This new centre will help us better serve the London area with a much broader range of slots.”