Construction has been completed on a new £22m food DC for The Co-operative in north Derbyshire, which the firm says will employ over 1,000 people and create around 320 new jobs.

The Castlewood site, which will service over 500 Co-operative food stores in Yorkshire, Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire, will start operation in January with the first deliveries scheduled for March. It will become fully operational in September.

Located just off junction 28 of the M1, the new site will take over the operations of two smaller food depots at Alfreton, near Derby, and Bulwell, near Nottingham, which are now facing closure.

It is anticipated that the majority of jobs at the Castlewood DC will be filled by the 740 staff currently working at these two sites.

New depot

The new depot will be an own-account operation employing approximately 380 drivers and around 620 warehouse staff. It will run a fleet of 273 vehicles, Mark Leonard, head of logistics service at The Co-operative Food, told MT.

Leonard described completion of the new DC as a “major milestone” and said it marked the final phase of the overhaul of the firm’s logistics network.

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