Page 28 - Food & Drink Magazine October 2019

PLANT DESIGN & FITOUT
Fiercely independent
Building a $125 million, 55,000 square metre distribution centre was not something the founder of Drakes Supermarkets Roger Drake ever imagined would be a part of the business. He caught up with Kim Berry to explain how it came to be.
staff and will benefit Drakes employees by reducing physical demands of their jobs and the risk of injury.”
The centre will employ a further 140 full-time staff and will provide advanced training to all employees. Drakes currently employs more than 6000 people.
Dematic also won the pallet racking contract. For Drake, that Dematic made everything in Australia gave him peace of mind.
“It was a relief that we can do these things in Australia and that we had chosen the right company.”
The team worked with Two Elk, Browne Falconer Architects, Lucid Engineering and WT Engineering in the design and functionality of the building as well as the City of Playford to include landscaping, improve local amenities as well as ensure little to no local traffic impact during the extensive build process.
“We didn’t go with a tier one builder, we went with guys who had built a shopping centre for us,” Drake says.
The design, planning and approvals took approximately six months, with the build, fit
AN increasingly difficult retail market, a frustrating business relationship and a deep and abiding commitment to his customers put the founder and managing director of Drakes Supermarkets, Roger Drake
at a crossroads.
“We had to remove the
middleman. We were not able to buy goods at the right price and if you can’t buy right, you can’t store right,” Drake told Food & Drink Business.
Drake said negotiations with wholesale supplier Metcash were unsuccessful so they decided to do something independently.
“Our aim is to save the average South Australian family around $20 per week at the check-out, which equates to over $1000 per year, by just having direct relationships with our suppliers and cutting out the middle-man.
“We are a South Australian, family-owned and operated business that has taken the leap to go out on our own, take on the big corporations and provide our customers the biggest range of products for the best possible prices.”
The company already had its own fruit and vegetable distribution centre, and a state-of-the-art $10 million meat production facility.
“We’re probably the only other retailer apart from Coles and Woolworths to have that,” he says.
But he never anticipated opening a distribution centre, thinking acquisitions and stores would be the company’s future.
“The management team travelled the world to see if it was viable for an independent to run its own centre. Then we engaged someone who had set up centres and visited five
countries to see best practice in advanced robotics, distribution and logistics systems within the industry.”
FIRST OF ITS TYPE ROBOTICS
The $15 million robotic system used in the distribution centre, supplied by Dematic, is the first of its type in production and will be used to individually pick inventory items for store replenishment using a “goods-to- person” configuration, ensuring accuracy of store orders and leading to superior deliveries and lower cost, Drake says.
Within the advanced robotic system, the robotic arm picks 1000 individual products per hour and the shuttles pick 650 per hour. The centre has 6000 individual SKUs in the robotics single pick lines. The centre will hold 23,000 SKUs.
Drake says: “Implementing robotic piece picking will automate the repetitive pick and pack processes that are labour intensive, difficult for
28 | Food&Drink business | October 2019 | www.foodanddrinkbusiness.com.au