Show shopping carnival parade for Lidl’s largest warehouse
A ‘show stopping’ parade by Luton Carnival today marked the official opening of Lidl’s £300m Regional Distribution Centre (RDC) – its largest warehouse in the world.
Situated in the heart of Houghton Regis, Luton, this 1.2 million square foot state-of-the-art facility could fit three of Lidl’s existing warehouses inside. It is poised to serve up to 150 stores, a substantial leap from the 60-80 serviced by its other distribution centres.
Lidl celebrated the grand opening with a lively carnival parade, featuring performers from the area, while locals were also in attendance, highlighting the company’s commitment to being an active contributor to the community.
Following the conclusion of the festivities with a symbolic ribbon-cutting ceremony, Jennifer Davidson, Lidl’s Regional Director responsible for the new RDC, commented: “In my 26 years at Lidl I’ve had the opportunity to work on some incredible projects, but none of which I am prouder of than this. To see the culmination of all the work that’s gone into it and knowing the boost that it’s going to give to the local economy, including the creation of a significant amount of new jobs, is truly something. We have an exceptional team here, and I’m excited about what the future has in store for us, and Lidl on the whole.”
The warehouse itself will be the first in the UK to feature automation, helping to store more goods and increase capacity at the distribution centre, which in turn is helping bring more employment opportunities to wider Bedfordshire.
Set to create up to 1,500 jobs, warehouse colleagues will benefit from working at the highest paying supermarket after hourly wages increased this month to £11.40 from £11.00, with the potential to rise to £12.30 with length of service. Benefits also include life assurance and optional health and dental insurance schemes, as well as enhanced holiday entitlement, and 10% discount in stores.
The warehouse has been designed with sustainability at the forefront, featuring solar panels that are set to generate 2,000,000 kWH’s of electricity annually. At certain times throughout the year the warehouse will run purely on solar power. Additionally, all its delivery fleet is fuelled by biogas from food waste, supporting the discounter’s ambition to have 100% of its fleet diesel free by 2030.
Richard Taylor, Chief Development Officer at Lidl GB, said: “The opening of this new RDC in Luton is a seminal moment for Lidl GB. Demand for Lidl has never been higher, and we are seeing an increasing number of people walk through our doors to make savings on every shop. The fact that Lidl’s largest RDC in the world is here in Great Britain speaks for itself not only in terms of us needing to meet the growing demand from customers, but also in terms of our ambition to grow that demand in the future.
“It is a spectacular state-of-the-art site that our team has worked incredibly hard on to get to where we are today. It has the capacity to service 150 stores, which is nearly triple the amount of some of our existing warehouses, demonstrating the true scale of our ambition and growth potential.”
The multi-million pound investment builds on momentum already made this year. In April, Lidl announced it was recruiting for 400 roles as it submitted a planning application at a 38-acre site in Gildersome, Leeds. This followed the recent opening of four RDCs including Motherwell, Peterborough, Doncaster and a second site in Belvedere.
