Ocado Group and AOEN have announced the continued expansion of their partnership, with plans to construct a third Customer Fulfilment Centre (“CFC”) in Kuki-Miyashiro, the Saitama prefecture of Japan.
Ocado entered an exclusive partnership with AEON in 2019 to develop the online operations of the AEON NEXT grocery business using the Ocado Smart Platform (“OSP”). The new facility, to go live in 2027, was announced as AEON celebrated the first anniversary of the official launch of AEON NEXT’s online grocery delivery brand.
In addition to the network expansion, AEON will also upgrade its live operations with the latest Ocado technologies including On-Grid Robotic Pick (“OGRP”). This will bring increasing levels of labour productivity to AEON’s operations, enabling them to further reduce the cost to serve and address long term challenges of labour availability in Japan.
Tim Steiner, CEO of Ocado Group, said: “Today is an exciting moment for AEON and Ocado’s relationship as we deepen our already strong partnership. As demonstrated by the state-of-the-art CFC live in Honda, Ocado is helping AEON NEXT to provide a seamless online grocery experience to customers across Tokyo. We can’t wait to bring this service to even more customers in the years to come.”
