St Austell Brewery has announced a major investment in its highly successful wholesale drinks business.
The independent, family owned Company is to take over a huge purpose-built warehouse and distribution centre in St Columb Major Business Park, which will become the regional hub for storage and distribution to all of the 2,000 pubs, clubs, hotels and other licensed premises supplied by the Business in Cornwall.
Equipped with state-of-the-art technology, the centre will replace existing depots at Bude, Newquay, Redruth and St Austell, providing double the current available floor space and meaning St Austell Brewery – already the South West’s largest wholesale distributor of beer, wines and spirits – is well placed to further grow this part of its business.
James Staughton, managing director of St Austell Brewery, said: “This is very exciting news for us. The new Regional Distribution Centre is modern, spacious and well designed, providing excellent working conditions and staff facilities to help us serve our customers more effectively and efficiently. It will enable us to further improve our service standards, reduce overheads in what is a highly competitive market and ensure we maintain our position as the best wholesale supplier in the region.”
James added: “The St Austell Brewery site will remain the headquarters for the business and will continue to be where we brew our beers. Indeed, opening the new regional distribution centre at St Columb releases much-needed space to continue developing the brewing department in St Austell in the coming years.”
The relocation of Cornish distribution operations to St Columb is expected to start in November and will be phased over nine months to ensure a smooth transition for staff and customers.
As well as revolutionising the wholesale side of its business the new regional distribution centre will bring a number of added environmental benefits in line with St Austell Brewery’s aim to be one of the UK’s greenest brewers and pub companies. Traffic movements through St Austell town centre and the surrounding area will be significantly reduced and the use of a centralised distribution system with computerised route planning will cut the road miles travelled each year by delivery drays.
If you found this story interesting please press the button below to bookmark using one of the many social bookmarking sites. If you would like to keep up to date with news as it happens, why not subscribe to our RSS feed at the top of the right hand column?
