Coles launches $400 million 'dark supermarket' you will never see inside: 'Australian-first'

Coles (COL.AX) has opened a new facility to transform their online grocery process that's the first of its kind in Australia. A Customer Fulfilment Centre (CFC), also known as dark or ghost supermarkets, has opened in Victoria and is four times the size of the Melbourne Cricket Ground.

Instead of online orders being filled at the closest Coles supermarket, they will be packed at the massive Truganina warehouse, about 20 kilometres from Melbourne's CBD. There will be hundreds of Australians working there, but also 700 robots.

The bots will scour the 87,000 square metre centre for your grocery list and Coles said they can pack 50 items in just five minutes.

For shoppers, this means better availability, fewer substitutions, an increased range of products, and improvements in the shelf-life of grocery staple items.

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The supermarket also said delivery times will be improved and hopes the highly efficient new system will cut down on food wastage as some items will be cut and packaged to order.

"Today's opening signals a major step change in our online grocery deliveries that will offer our customers greater choice, better availability, improved freshness and more flexible delivery options," Coles Chief Executive Officer Leah Weckert said.

The centre will be able to fulfil orders from Ballan to Bunyip and from Beveridge to the Mornington Peninsula.

"We sought the best global technology in the world to reimagine the Coles Online experience here in Australia. This transition from a local, store-based fulfillment model to a central, world-class facility will enable us to better serve the greater Melbourne region, home to more than five million people."

Coles has invested $400 million into the initiative and plans to open a CFC in Sydney's Wetherill Park next month.

The Truganina location will be able to process up to 10,000 orders per day when it's running at full capacity and it will be able to employ 1,000 staff.

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Customers will also get access to 20 per cent more products shopping online through the CFCs compared to shopping in-store.

Coles plans to drastically increase that number over time and shoppers would be able to access double the amount of choice than in-store.

Coles Group Chairman James Graham said the CFC has been a five-year journey.

"With today’s launch of the first of two CFCs, we’ve made some meaningful progress in our commitment to use the best technology to drive supply chain innovation,” he said.

Woolworths has several much smaller CFCs located in Sydney that are able to each pack tens of thousands of orders per week.

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