Bidvest 3663 has gone live with its new £16m, “cutting-edge”,  energy-efficient £16m depot in Chepstow, Monmouthshire.

The 170,000 sq ft warehouse is the foodservice provider’s largest regional distribution centre to date.

It forms part of a multi-million pound investment in bolstering the company’s local depot network and expanding its customer base.

Bidvest has consolidated its Bristol and Severnbridge depots into the Chepstow facility and relocated its Swansea centre to a newly-refurbished site nearby.

Chepstow will serve customers throughout South Wales and the West County and support other Bidvest 3663 sites with its extensive frozen product range, while Swansea will support customers in West Wales.

Some 5,100 product lines will be stocked at Chepstow, which will implement what the company said were “a series of cutting-edge technologies” to make customers’ lives easier.

The company said voice-picking technology would ensure consistent order accuracy and a new customer support system would handle incoming calls.

About 30 vehicles will make about 1,700 deliveries each week, distributing more than 70,000 items from the facility.

Bidvest 3663’s Midlands managing director, Dave Hodgson, said the new facilities were part of the company’s investment strategy for growth based on boosting service levels and future-proofing its network.

“Recent new account wins, securing category supply agreements with leading regional and national customers and growth from the independent sector means that improving efficiencies and delivering top customer service is more important than ever.

“By investing in a high-specification depot with state-of-the-art facilities and amalgamating teams from Bristol and Severnbridge, we aim to meet these challenges and push service levels even further,” Hodgson said.

The new openings come hard on the heels of site openings in Wakefield, West Yorkshire and Bicester, Oxfordshire.