Governor Roy Cooper recently announced the development of a new Kroger Customer Fulfillment Center in Cabarrus County. Cooper was pleased with the Grocery giant’s investment which is intended to create up to 700 new jobs over a five year period, and this development will support a logistics facility which will be built in the city of Concord.
Although the site location of the new Kroger Customer Fulfillment Center is yet to be named, Kroger Co., has said the automated facility would be approximately 200,000 square feet and majority of its operations would involve the use of robotics. Algorithms used in the center’s vertically integrated network would carry out various operations, which include matching customers’ orders to their delivery dates, ensuring items are sorted and intelligently packed, loading orders into a temperature controlled Kroger van, and optimizing delivery routes. The grocer is working on the project with Ocado Group and Kroger expects the facility to become fully operational, 2 years after the groundbreaking.
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Kroger Customer Fulfillment Center project to receive JDIG worth $2.3 M over a 12 year period
This new Kroger Customer Fulfillment Center development will receive financial support in the form of state incentives of about $5.2 million and local incentives worth up to $2 million in total from Cabarrus County. A Job Development Investment Grant (JDIG) approved by the state’s Economic Investment Committee will facilitate the project, by making installmental payments to the company worth about $2.3 million in total, spread across a 12 year period; over the course of the 12-year JDIG agreement, the project is expected to increase the economy of the state by $820.8 million, and this also takes into consideration the new tax revenues, which will be generated from the creation of 700 new jobs. According to the North Carolina Department of Commerce, these new jobs will be above the average salary range of $42,000 in Cabarrus County and the total payroll impact alone from this project on the region is estimated at over $29 million each year.
The senior vice president and chief supply chain officer of Kroger, Gabriel Arreaga, expressed his gratitude to Governor Roy Cooper for his collaboration and for also supporting the development of this new Kroger Customer Fulfillment Center in Cabarrus County. Arreaga also spoke on the company’s vision and stated that the addition of this customer fulfillment center would enhance their delivery business and also demonstrate the company’s commitment to creating new career opportunities.
