Ocado has opened its sixth customer fulfilment centre (CFC) in Purfleet, adding 1500 new jobs to the local area.

The robotic warehouse opening coincided with the one-year anniversary of Ocado Retail starting its delivery service for Marks & Spencer.

The fulfilment centre is the company’s third to go live this year, following the reopening of Andover last month, and the opening of its mini Bristol CFC earlier this year.

The new site is Ocado Retail’s second biggest behind Erith. The company said that the warehouse will help increase capacity to “meet the strong demand” for online groceries across the UK.

Once fully ramped, the CFC will have the capacity to deliver over 80,000 orders per week.

According to the online retailer, prior to the opening of Purfleet and Andover, Ocado Retail was delivering 356,000 orders per week.

Once all three new sites that opened this year are fully ramped up, Ocado Retail will have increased capacity by 40 per cent compared with 2020, taking total potential capacity (on a pre-Covid-19 basket) to 600,000 orders per week.

“The opening of our Purfleet CFC is an exciting milestone in Ocado’s journey, enabling us to deliver to more customers than ever before,” said Melanie Smith, chief executive, Ocado Retail. “Our partnership with M&S over the last year has seen our customers regularly add a wide variety of terrific M&S products to their baskets.”

Smith added: “Now with our increased capacity and slot availability, we’re proud to bring our market-leading range, great value and unbeatable service to even more people across the nation.”

Share Story: