Iceland food warehouse

Source: Iceland

Food Warehouse stores are typically between 10,000 and 15,000 sq ft, compared to an Iceland’s 5,000 sq ft

  • The retailer began adding Food Warehouse branches to its online service last year

  • Iceland has recruited 1,100 extra drivers and 3,200 store assistants during the Covid-19 outbreak

 

Iceland is increasing its home delivery capacity by 250% by bringing more of its 120 Food Warehouse stores online.

The retailer began adding Food Warehouse branches to its online service last year and has now ramped up the national rollout to meet soaring demand in the coronavirus lockdown.

It is unlocking the online capacity of stores between 10,000 and 15,000 sq ft, compared to the typical Iceland’s 5,000 sq ft.

“Across the business as a whole we are working to deliver a 250% increase in our online delivery capacity compared with pre-Covid levels,” an Iceland spokesman told The Grocer.

“We were in the process of rolling out online delivery across The Food Warehouse estate before the pandemic struck,” he added. ”Naturally these larger stores with their larger warehouses will be seeing a disproportionate increase in online delivery capacity compared with our smaller Iceland stores, which were already running hard with their longer-established online delivery operations.”

Some Food Warehouse branches have the seen their online operations grow by as much as 500% in days.

“We delivered more deliveries today then we would normally do in two full weeks,” one store manager wrote on LinkedIn.

Iceland had also recruited 1,100 extra drivers during the Covid-19 outbreak and 3,200 store assistants to help with picking orders, the spokesman said.

Meanwhile, the delivery fleet had been expanded through new partnerships with “a number of companies that currently have vans standing idle” during lockdown.

All the major supermarkets who serve online have been working to quickly ramp up capacity in the face of unprecedented demand.

Tesco CEO Dave Lewis last week said the supermarket had increased slots by 20%, from 660,000 deliveries to 805,000 a week.

Asda has added at least 300,000 extra weekly delivery slots, while Morrisons has grown the number by 60%.

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