Kroger’s Hub and Spoke E-Commerce Network Nears 2M SF

Kroger has been rapidly connecting the dots this year on a national “hub and spoke” network of robotic e-commerce fulfillment centers and last-mile facilities, fulfilling a prescient commitment the grocery giant made—before the pandemic started—to be ahead of the curve when digital transformation came to food shopping.

The “hubs” of the network are large regional fulfillment centers—Kroger calls them Customer Fulfillment Centers or CFCs—each averaging about 300K SF, that provide goods to a constellation of “spokes,” 50K SF to 60K SF last-mile facilities that extend the reach of the hubs, including to areas where Kroger has no stores.

The robotic hub and spoke facilities of the Kroger Delivery network have been developed with UK-based e-grocer Ocado, a company that specializes in automated fulfillment systems.

The network was launched in 2020 with a series of announcements of plans for CFC and spoke facilities in locations across the US, followed by ribbon-cuttings that began in in Q2 2021. There have been so many announcements that this week GroceryDive created an interactive map to track them.

Kroger opened its first CFC in April 2021, a 375K SF robotic facility in Monroe, OH. Located a few miles from Kroger’s HQ in Cincinnati, the robotic facility was the first developed in partnership with Ocado.

Two months later, the company opened a 375K SF CFC in Groveland, FL and two “spoke” facilities that would service the hub, one in Tampa and the other in Jacksonville. In December, Kroger opened its third hub, a 375K SF CFC in Forest Park, GA, near Atlanta.

In February 2022, Kroger opened a 350K SF CFC in Dallas. This was followed in May by the opening of a 61K SF spoke facility in Lockbourne, OH. Last month, the company opened a 60K SF spoke in Miami.

At the end of last month, a 334K SF CFC opened in Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin, roughly equidistant from Chicago and Milwaukee.

Based on the announcements it has made in the past two years, according to GroceryDive’s timeline, Kroger Delivery CFCs are planned for Cleveland; Phoenix; Aurora, CO; Concord, NC; Frederick, MD; and undisclosed locations in the Northeast, Pacific Northwest and in California.

No scheduled opening dates have been announced for these CFC facilities.

In January, Ocado unveiled fulfillment robots it says are five times lighter than earlier models and an on-grid robotic arm it says will further automate the picking and packing process at Kroger Delivery facilities.

The “ultralight” bots, which are produced using 3D printing, can be installed in weeks instead of months, according to Ocado.