Dive Brief:
- Ahold Delhaize USA has made one Investment of 860 million dollars to build a distribution center in Burlington, North Carolina, in an effort to grow its supply chain network, according to an announcement Wednesday.
- The new facility will add more than 1 million square feet of fresh and frozen grocery distribution infrastructure, which will primarily support the company’s Food Lion stores.
- This Food Lion-centric distribution center comes as the banner continues to be Ahold Delhaize USA’s golden goose, achieving its 51st consecutive quarter of positive store sales growth in August.
Diving knowledge:
Construction of the distribution center, which will be based on automated supply chain technology, is scheduled to begin in 2026 and operations are expected to begin in 2029.
The new distribution center will allow Ahold Delhaize’s transportation and distribution businesses to “expand their capacity to support Food Lion’s growth in the state, along with the creation of new jobs,” Ahold Delhaize USA CEO JJ Fleeman said in a statement.
This new site is part of the larger one in the company Strategy Growing Togethernoted Ahold Delhaize a a separate announcementand the last step in that of the company impulse of self-distribution which started six years ago.
The incoming facility in Burlington, North Carolina, which is Ahold Delhaize’s fourth in the state, will create more than 500 new jobs, according to the announcement. The company’s other North Carolina locations are in Salisbury, Butner and Dunn.
Food Lion, which has been a top-performing banner for Ahold Delhaize in recent years, is currently out of business 1,100 stores in 10 southeastern and mid-Atlantic states. In addition to steady growth in store sales, the grocery chain led online sales growth in the United States for Ahold Delhaize in its second quarter. Ahold Delhaize achieved e-commerce profitability on a fully allocated basis in the first half of 2025, the company reported in August as part of its second quarter earnings presentation
