Ocado axes Hatfield CFC

By Carol Millett

Ocado Retail, the joint venture with Marks & Spencer, is to close its Hatfield customer fulfilment centre (CFC), putting 2,300 jobs at risk.

A staff consultation is expected to close this summer, with Hatfield operations planned to halt in line with the start of operations at the Luton site.

The company said it expects to retain a large proportion of the workforce, either in its new Luton CFC or across its wider UK network.

The Hatfield centre is Ocado’s

Manfreight takes on £9m Belfast warehouse site

International transport firm Manfreight has leased a new £9m warehouse from Belfast Harbour beside the port’s RoRo ferry terminals.

The 50,000sq ft warehouse is the first in Northern Ireland to be constructed to BREEAM ‘Excellent’ environmental standards and will service agri-food producers and retailers.

It was described by Manfreight as “an important strategic step” as it aims to meet its customers’ oldest CFC and fulfils approximately a fifth of Ocado.com’s 400,000 weekly orders.

These orders will be moved to other “high-productivity, nextgeneration” facilities, including the nearby Luton CFC, scheduled to open later this year, the company said.

The move is part of the retailer’s strategy to take advantage of the continued shift to online, adding that it did not expect the closure of Hatfield CFC to result in any change to the volume of orders Ocado fulfils. However, Ocado has seen sales drag since the end of the pandemic lockdowns, when orders rocketed as consumers abandoned high street shopping.

Last month, Ocado announced that new distribution centres planned for the south-east and north-west of England had been put on hold, revealing it had built capacity to process 700,000 orders a week in the UK but was delivering less than 400,000.

Bergen Logistics in recruitment drive

Elanders UK has announced the appointment of David Pritchard as supply chain team leader at its subsidiary Bergen Logistics.

The company is also planning to recruit 60 staff at Bergen this year, as part of its plans to expand into the UK fashion and lifestyle fulfilment market.

growing needs for sustainable and digitised warehousing solutions.

Manfreight MD Chris Slowey said: “This port-centric warehouse solution will allow us to store, cross dock and distribute products in a temperature- controlled eco-friendly environment. We will also be able to enhance our fully automated customs solutions for the import and export of these goods, making our supply chain processes more streamlined and efficient.”

Pritchard’s appointment follows the launch of Bergen Logistics by Elanders UK in January this year, which saw it take on a £4.6m, 48,000sq ft facility in North Tyneside.

Prompt Transport opts for Volvo

Prompt Transport is switching its entire artic fleet over to Volvo and has already taken delivery of four new FH Globetrotter 6x2 tractor units with I-Save.

Lee Parker, Prompt director, said: “We had previously run with one manufacturer for more than two decades.

and we are very happy with how the move has gone so far.”

The Bristol company said the transition was already providing benefits, with fuel savings of around 1.5mpg being achieved in comparison to the HGVs being replaced.

GOING STATESIDE: Unipart is looking at moving the group’s investment to the US or Europe because of the UK government’s lack of support for the electric vehicle market and wider green economy. Unipart, which is based in Oxford and employs more than 8,000 people, makes vehicle parts, components and manages supply chain logistics. Chairman John Neill, who is on the board of the SMMT, told the BBC that the US Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), passed last year, offered firms a “game-changing set of incentives and fiscal support”. Billions of dollars in grants, loans, tax breaks and subsidies are available to support the production of goods such as electric vehicles and green energy. However, recipients must manufacture in the US to qualify.

“However, we were having one or two issues so at the start of 2022 we decided to trial demonstrators from three other marques and Volvo came out as the clear winner.

“With these four latest arrivals, we are up to nine FHs and are planning to replace the remaining 12 tractor units we operate over the course of the next few years. The drivers absolutely love them,