Thomas Ridley Foodservice is to open a £3.6m 25,000 sq ft frozen food depot in Bury St Edmunds by September, with the relocation of its head office staff from Rougham.
The new site will have volume for more than 2,000 pallets, increasing the current frozen sales volume capacity by more than 50%. The new store will also include voice picking, warehouse management and multi-order picking onto electronic trucks.
Chilled sales volume capacity will also double as Thomas Ridley will convert the current freezer facility into a chilled store. During this depot upgrade extra space for ambient storage will also be created.
The building housing the new freezer store will also include purpose-built offices designed by Bluespace, to which current head office staff based in Rougham will transfer when complete.
John Hepworth, operations director, said, “The new 25,000 square foot freezer store will significantly improve our frozen offering and will also allow us to double our chilled proposition. This will ensure that we can provide our end user customers with a far greater range of both chilled and frozen products.
'It also represents a significant opportunity for current, as well as potential suppliers, in that we can now provide an even faster and more cost effective route to market.
'Both of these investments are integral to our overall 10 year plan that will allow us the capacity to double our sales volume by 2027.”
The news comes as the company celebrates its 100th anniversary as a limited company.