kroger advances high-tech facility expansion plans

The nation’s largest supermarket chain is pushing ahead with plans to build a series of new fulfillment centers.

The Cincinnati-based Kroger Company has said its latest project in this line will be a 350,000 square foot facility in Dallas. Work on the project is expected to begin early next year.

Altogether, the company, with revenues in excess of $28.2 billion in the second quarter of this year, wants to build a total of twenty such facilities, with construction on two centers already underway in Ohio and Florida.

Those fulfillment centers are essentially warehouses where everything is automated, allowing the company to quickly process e-grocery shopping orders.
The fulfillment centers are part of a larger company strategy introduced in the fall of 2017 and designed to compete with such e-retailers as Amazon.

The company expects to spend around $9 billion building the new facilities.

At the groundbreaking of the new fulfillment center in Groveland, Florida, Kroger chief executive officer Rodney McMullen said the company was eager to embrace “advanced robotics technology and creative solutions to provide customers with anything, anytime, anywhere.”

Earlier this summer, Kroger announced construction of a 375,000 square foot fulfillment center that will be based in Forest Park, Georgia.

The locations of future planned fulfillment centers has not yet been announced.
Based in Cincinnati, Kroger currently has nearly 2,800 stores in 35 states.

By Garry Boulard

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