Unilever East Africa on Tuesday opened a Kes500 million 23,000-square-meter warehouse facility to handle health and beauty products across the East African (EA) market.

Unilever Kenya Managing Director Luck Ochieng said that the newly constructed ultra-modern warehouse will grow the firm’s turnover and increase capacity, job creation, and community impact.

“With the increasing demand for Unilever’s products in the recent times and limited warehousing capacity in the market, Unilever aims to close the gap between higher demand and shortage of supply through this new facility.”

The warehouse is equipped with the latest automated storage and retrieval systems developments. It has a greater pallet capacity, helping the company store, process, and efficiently ship its products.

Unilever’s Head of Supply Chain in Africa, Christian Byron, affirmed the importance of localizing raw and packaging materials in Unilever’s production processes.

He noted that 70 per cent of the raw and packaging materials that Unilever uses for production on the continent are made in Africa, which positively impacts access and affordability of their products.

“At Unilever, we continue to invest and strengthen our commitment to Kenya with the expansion of our facilities in the country,” Byron stated.