Swedish retailer ICA has announced that it plans to develop a new 23,000 square metre freezer warehouse in Hacksta, Västerås.
The new warehouse will be built adjacent to ICA’s existing warehouse in Västerås, around 120 kilometres west of Stockholm, and is expected to commence operations in 2025.
The investment is set to be worth approximately SEK 1.8 billion, ICA said, and is in line with the development plan for the Västerås property, which was acquired in April 2020.
“This is a future-oriented and important investment to promote growth of both the existing and future product range" commented Anders Svensson, CEO of ICA Sverige AB.
"Development and modernisation of our warehouses is a continually ongoing process to raise delivery quality for our customers and the work environment for our employees. The new freezer warehouse will strengthen our product supply to stores and make us more competitive in the market."
Tough Comparatives
Elsewhere, ICA has reported a 0.9% decrease in like-for-like sales across its Swedish store estate for the month of November, citing tough comparatives with the corresponding period the previous year.
Reported sales were down 0.5% for the month, to SEK 10.43 billion (€1.02 billion).
The group's ICA Nära banner was the only one to see an uplift in sales in November, by 0.7% on a like-for-like basis and 0.6% on a reported basis, reporting sales of SEK 1.53 billion.
Its ICA Supermarket banner saw like-for-like sales down 0.6% and reported sales down 0.2% (to SEK 2.95 billion), ICA Kvantum was down 0.5% on a like-for-like basis and 0.3% reported (to SEK 2.54 billion), and its Maxi ICA Stormarknad arm saw a 2.2% drop in like-for-like and a 1.3% decline in reported sales (to SEK 3.41 billion).
January To November
Sales in the period January to November were up 0.8% on a like-for-like basis and 1.0% on a reported basis, the company said.
The calendar effect in November is estimated to be +0.5%, and there are 1,267 ICA stores in operation as of 30 November 2021.
In the third quarter of its financial year, ICA Gruppen reported a 2.2% increase in sales. [Image: ©Roland Magnusson/123RF.COM]
© 2021 European Supermarket Magazine. Article by Stephen Wynne-Jones. For more Supply Chain news, click here. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: European Supermarket Magazine.
