Together with Austria’s Raiffeisen Bank international (RBI), KfW IPEX-Bank is financing the construction of a semi-automated logistics centre for REWE in Henstedt-Ulzburg, a town in the German state of Schleswig-Holstein. In the first step of this process, the bank is providing debt capital amounting to around EUR 75 million, while a further EUR 32 million is being contributed by Raiffeisen Bank International. The total investment volume including technical equipment amounts to around EUR 330 million.

The logistics centre with a useable floor space of 85,300 square metres is currently being built by REWE at a site around 35 kilometres to the north of Hamburg, just off the A7 motorway. From August 2022 onwards, the centre will supply 350 stores across northern Germany with fruit, vegetables, chilled produce, meat, dry goods, frozen goods, health and beauty products and non-food items. By relying on semi-automated logistics systems, the centre will be able to pick around 165,000 items according to each store’s needs every day. 250 new jobs will be created at the new logistics site.

This investment is part of the sustainability strategy of the REWE Group aimed, among others, at significantly reducing its greenhouse gas emissions. The funds for the financing are provided from KfW’s Energy Efficiency programme.