November 2000

Sainsbury's has opened its second dedicated home delivery e-fulfilment centre, which is at Gorton in west Manchester. It will stock 15,000 lines, and will have the capacity to fulfil around 5,000 orders weekly. The company plans to have 33 stores online by next spring, by which time its Sainsbury's to You service will extend to 60 per cent of UK households.

The first fulfilment centre is now fully operational at Park Royal in west London. The 12,000 sq m facility there cost £10 million, and is said to be able to process over 15,000 customer orders a week ­ equivalent to the output of 23 stores. The van delivery fleet at Park Royal is being supplied under a contract-hire deal with VIA Truck Rental, which is providing 150 Volkswagen LT 35 vans. They have dual-compartment bodies for handling chilled and ambient foods, and use separate insulated roll-pallets with dry-ice refrigeration to carry frozen food in the chilled compartment. Movable bulkheads have been used to allow maximum flexiblity in configuration. Unusually, all the vans are powered by liquid petroleum gas, having been converted to bi-fuel operation by the Ecological Engine Company. Ultimately Sainsbury's is believed to plan five major e-fulfilment centres, which could include a second London base, plus one in Birmingham. But e-commerce director Angela Megson says the company's strategy involves handling e-fulfilment from a mix of stores and medium and large picking centres. The latest store to handle home deliveries is at Denton, again in west Manchester.