McLane Company, Inc., announced the opening of a new grocery distribution center in the Ocala International Commerce Center. The 400,000 square foot facility will house 165,000 square feet of dry grocery, nearly 200,000 square feet of perishables and 35,000 square feet of office and support space.
The first shipment arrived at the McLane Ocala distribution center, at 910 NW 50th Avenue in Ocala, FL, on February 4, 2019 and deliveries will begin on March 17, 2019.
McLane Company is one of the largest supply chain services leaders, providing grocery and foodservice supply chain solutions for convenience stores, mass merchants, drug stores and chain restaurants throughout the United States.
“We are thrilled to open our new facility in Ocala where the business community is welcoming and open to growth,” said Michelle Chesnutt, division president of McLane Ocala. “The values and work ethic of the prospective workforce is an ideal fit with McLane’s culture. McLane Ocala continues our company’s core initiative to drive customer results.”
This location will be McLane’s sixth distribution center in Florida, joining the grocery center in Kissimmee and four foodservice centers in Lakeland, Haines City and two in Orlando and will service the quickly-expanding customer base in the North Florida region. Construction Management Technology (CMT), the general contractor for the project, oversaw the renovations and development.
The new distribution center will create over 400 new jobs in Marion County. By the end of the year, McLane Ocala plans to onboard 316 warehouse and support teammates and 120 drivers and transportation support teammates.
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Driver hiring began in October of 2018 in effort to allow drivers to become acclimated with the company’s customers and the delivery process in general. The recruiting team held a three-day job fair in January at the facility and nearly 600 candidates were interviewed, resulting in 233 job offers.
The Ocala/Marion County Chamber and Economic Partnership (CEP), The County Commission and Ocala City Council were instrumental to the venture as well.
“We are thankful for McLane Company’s presence here in our community,” said Ocala Mayor Kent Guinn. “We are excited about their growth, their services and their community involvement.”
McLane, through McLane Grocery and McLane Foodservice, operates over 80 distribution centers across the U.S. and one of the nation’s largest private fleets. The company buys, sells and delivers more than 50,000 different consumer products to nearly 110,000 locations across the U.S.
In addition, the company provides alcoholic beverage distribution through its wholly owned subsidiary, Empire Distributors, Inc. McLane is a wholly owned unit of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. and employs more than 20,000 workers.
Information provided by Business Wire.