WinCo Plans SoCal Warehouse

ELLIOT ZWIEBACH

BOISE, Idaho — WinCo Foods here said it plans to build a 2-million-square-foot distribution center in Beaumont, Calif., at some point in the next few years — on a site approximately 75 miles east of Los Angeles — to help support its expansion in Southern California.

The facility would also position WinCo “to move into other areas,” company spokesman Mike Read told SN. Read declined to pinpoint where the company might move, although industry observers said WinCo is reportedly looking at sites in the Phoenix area.

Read said WinCo has acquired the Beaumont property but has not yet determined when it will build a facility there. It currently operates only 12 stores in Southern California and fills their needs from a distribution center in Modesto, in Northern California.

WinCo is a “no-frills” operator with 74 stores in Idaho, Washington, Oregon, Nevada, California and Utah, with annual sales estimated at $4.6 billion. The company opened a 750,000-square-foot warehouse here last year that facilitated its expansion into Utah, where it has since opened four locations.

“WinCo is a very healthy, growing company [with] a pretty good supply chain, which is the key to its growth — supporting each new store with a strong supply chain,” said Mike Griswold, an analyst here with AMR Research, Boston.

Another industry observer said WinCo's business model “is to be the low-price leader in every market in which it operates” — and it's able to deliver that model everywhere it goes, Craig Rosenblum, a partner at Willard Bishop, Barrington, Ill., told SN.

“Wal-Mart will tell you the only retailer it fears is WinCo because WinCo is able to provide prices that are equivalent to or better than Wal-Mart's and a shopping experience that is equivalent to or better than Wal-Mart's,” Rosenblum said.