Walmart Canada opens new British Columbia fulfillment center
Walmart Canada has opened its newest high-tech fulfillment center, located in Surrey, British Columbia outside of Vancouver.
The 300,000 square foot, $175 million facility is part of Walmart Canada's $3.5 billion investment to generate significant growth and speed up the flow of products, including from private brands, through the company's supply chain.
The Surrey Grocery Distribution Center will employ more than 250 associates once fully operational, and will provide ambient (pantry items), fresh and frozen grocery goods to 45 Walmart stores in British Columbia. The facility features vertical picking technology from WITRON, allowing as many as 150,000 orders per day to be picked.
The new facility follows the opening of Walmart Canada’s fulfillment center in Rocky View County, Alberta, which came after plans were announced to build a new tech hub in Toronto, expanding Walmart’s reach in Canada.
"We're incredibly proud of our new sustainability-focused and technology-enabled distribution center in Surrey,” said Horacio Barbeito, president and CEO of Walmart Canada. “Facilities like this one are an investment in the community, our associates and customers and allow our suppliers to get their products into the hands of Canadians across the country even faster. We continue to strengthen our world-class supply chain to ensure Canadians have access to the products they need in a way that's fast, efficient and minimizes our impact on the environment so that they can live better."
Key sustainability features of the fulfillment center include LED lighting and intelligent controls, which can reduce energy consumption by 70%, efficient refrigeration systems using environmentally preferable CFC free carbon dioxide (CO2), HVAC system designed to reclaim heat rejected from the refrigeration system and leverage it in radiant under floor heating and more.
"Surrey is the most technologically-advanced facility for Walmart in Canada and is also the future hub for our electric fleet," said John Bayliss, EVP, chief transformation officer, Walmart Canada. "This is only the start for what Canadians can expect from Walmart: we're transforming how we enable our supply chain and associates with leading-edge technologies and innovations.
Walmart Canada operates a chain of more than 400 stores nationwide serving 1.5 million customers each day. The company employs more than 100,000 associates.