Area Development
WinCo Foods, a regional discount supermarket company, will begin shipping from its newest distribution center located at 7502 W. Durango Street in Phoenix, Arizona, on Wednesday, May 14.

The center, which includes over 900,000 square feet of warehouse space, will initially service nineteen WinCo Foods stores located in Arizona, Southern Nevada and Southern California. The facility will open with approximately 185 employees most of whom have been hired from the greater Phoenix market. The 19 stores represent a little more than half of the facility's capacity. When fully operational and at capacity the center should employ approximately 320 employees.

The center has approximately 500,000 square feet of dry grocery space and over 360,000 square feet of perishable space which is divided into several modules maintained at appropriate temperatures and humidity levels for frozen items, fresh produce, meat and dairy products. It also includes six large pressurized banana ripening rooms to assure that our stores and customers get their bananas just the way they want them. The remainder of the center is comprised of offices and outbuildings. There is preplanned space at the site to expand by up to 50 percent in the future.

According to the firm, Don Kellogg, Center Manager, reported WinCo has had a very positive response to the company's recruitment efforts and that the center will open with a quality, motivated workforce who will be shipping approximately 500,000 cases each week, as they begin operations on May 14th. Receiving the initial inventory has already begun and when filled the facility is capable of holding about 75,000 pallets or roughly 3,000 full truckloads of goods.