Sainsbury's scraps warehouse robots

- Published: 15 January, 2007

Sainsbury's is not investing £10m in building a new warehouse in Northampton, contrary to national newspaper reports.

However it is planning to scrap its warehouse robots.

A spokeswoman for the retailer said that the warehouse is already in existence and the figure of £10m was merely an analyst's estimate of all the changes Sainsbury's was planning for its supply chain, including taking out the automation at Waltham Point and Elstree.

"Sainsbury's is continually reviewing its supply chain to increase efficiencies and to allow us to invest further in our customer offer."

She continued: "Consequently we are implementing a number of new developments across the supply chain that will improve service to stores, increase our distribution space and improve our operating efficiency. These include a new manual distribution centre in Northampton and the refurbishment of our frozen food distribution centre in Elstree."

Sainsbury's invested considerably in automating its warehouse operations under previous chief executive, Sir Peter Davies.