Tesco's €70m distribution centre to create 300 jobs

Tesco is investing €70 million in a national distribution centre that will create 300 new jobs.

The retailer said yesterday that it is building a distribution centre at Donabate in north Co Dublin that will employ 600 people when it begins operations in April 2007.

Tesco says it will hire 300 new staff for the facility. It will also transfer 100 people from an existing centre in Ballycoolin to work in Donabate.

In addition, it will offer jobs at the new centre to 200 staff employed by a contractor, Exel.

The investment and the move to Donabate will add 500 people to Tesco Ireland's payroll and bring to 13,000 the number of people it employs in the State.

Donabate will be one of three Tesco distribution centres, along with Ballymun and Tallaght, which are also in Dublin. It will handle all processed and packaged groceries and some non-food products for the chain's 94 Irish stores.

Tesco will begin recruiting for the new operation today through its website and the daily newspapers.

It emerged yesterday that Tesco is expanding its clothing range in Britain. The chief executive of its Irish business, Tony Keohane, said yesterday that the company was moving in the same direction in this country.

"What we are doing is that we know our customers want us to expand our range of non-food products, including clothing, and we are doing that in our bigger stores," he said. "Where space allows, we will continue to do that going forward. We aim to be strong in food and non-food, including clothing, hardware and electrical goods."

Mr Keohane added that Tesco Ireland was behind the UK to a certain extent in expanding into these areas.

The company is continuing to expand in the Republic. It has 94 stores and its chief executive said that this figure could reach 100 by the end of 2007. "It would be nice to break through that next year," he said.

Tesco Ireland's sales reached €2.5 billion in the 12 months to the end of February. The company is optimistic that it can top this in the current financial year, but Mr Keohane said it was not in a position to make any firm predictions. "We're making good progress," he said.

Since the Government dropped the ban on selling groceries below their invoiced wholesale price (known as the ban on below-cost selling) earlier this year, the company has reduced charges on 5,000 items.

Around 10,000 items stocked by Tesco were covered by the ban, and the company expects to have extended the price cuts to all of them by early next year.