Over 2,000 Jobs on the Line as Ocado to Shut Hatfield Facility
Ocado is set to shut one of its biggest customer fulfilment centres, putting at risk the jobs of some 2,300 staff who work there.
The online retailer said its Hatfield site was the oldest in the network and is responsible for handing around 20% of its weekly orders.
Ocado said it had begun a consultation with staff and hoped to redeploy “as many as possible” to other sites, including its planned hub in Luton.
The firm said: “The Hatfield CFC remains a foundation stone in the Ocado story, as the company’s first fulfilment centre and a core test bed for the Ocado operating model, now deployed worldwide with Ocado Group’s retail partners.
“However, over the past decade, Ocado has unveiled a raft of new innovations, enabling huge leaps forward in both CFC productivity and customer experience.
“The latest generation of robotic CFCs are consistently achieving well over 200 units picked per labour hour within the facility (‘UPH’), compared to UPH of around 150 for our first generation CFC in Hatfield. The newest sites also have much lower energy usage.”
CEO Tim Steiner said: “As the online grocery channel grows, our new, enhanced fulfilment centres and technologies will drive a step change in customer experience and efficiency.
“With this capacity coming online, now is the right time for us to halt operations at our oldest facility at Hatfield.
“We have many brilliant Hatfield-based colleagues who have been with us for a long time and are a big part of our journey. We want to keep as much of this talent and experience within the business as possible and expect to retain a large proportion of colleagues impacted.”
Opened in 2000, Ocado’s Hatfield site was where the company set up its first office. It remains the firm’s global headquarters and home to one of its technology development centres. It is one of 15 customer fulfilment centres in the UK.
Ocado has just under 2,000 employees worldwide, according to its 2022 annual report.
Shares in the firm fell 0.6% to 503p following news of the site closure.
Analysts at JPMorgan said: “We note that with additional Luton capacity coming through, Ocado Retail will increase total capacity to 525k orders/week. Overall, we see this move as a sensible step towards better efficiency with very limited financial impacts/one-off cash costs for 2023.”
Source: Evening Standard
