Construction will begin this spring in Ingersoll on a $39-million distribution center for Dot Foods Canada, bringing 200 jobs to the area, the company said Wednesday.
“We’ve had some great investment into our town and certainly this one is fantastic,” Ingersoll Mayor Ted Comiskey said.
The facility, which will cover 126,500 square feet (11,500 square meters), is scheduled to open next year, the company said.
“They’re going to be kind of the first into our new industrial park that we’ve created. . . and so it can only be a positive,” Comiskey said of the company’s investment.
Earlier this month, the federal and provincial governments announced $500 million in spending to support electric vehicle production, a portion of which will go to the GM Canada Cami assembly plant in Ingersoll.
Dot Foods Inc., the US parent company of Dot Foods Canada, describes itself as the largest food redistributor in North America.
The distribution center in Ingersoll will include offices and dry, refrigerated and frozen warehouse space with docks, the company said.
Ingersoll checked all the boxes for what Dot needs, particularly its location along Highway 401, one of North America’s busiest highways, Comiskey said.
“Ingersoll is right on the 401 and it has access certainly to Windsor, to the States and certainly the Detroit area, and also to the east to Toronto,” he said. “And so it’s not surprising that people are now looking at this corridor, especially in Ingersoll right now because of the land that’s available.”
“It fit our Dot model. We like to get out of the metropolitan areas a little bit,” Richard Raham, Western Region DC general manager for Dot’s parent company, said from Illinois. It took about 12 months for the company to select a site, he said.
“We also do logistical studies and look at miles and our distribution points,” Raham said. With Ingersoll’s position on the 401 and its distance to other centres, “all of that goes into the logistics studies,” he said.
Easy access to good workers was also a factor in Dot’s decision, Comiskey said. The Ingersoll, Woodstock and Tillsonburg areas “are getting so many new residents coming up from Toronto, Oakville, Mississauga, Kitchener, because . . . our housing prices are much lower,” he said. That makes for a ready-made pool of talent, Comiskey said.
Dot Foods has been in Canada since 2016, when it established operations in Toronto and Calgary. When it opens in 2023, the company’s new facility in Ingersoll will replace its current headquarters in Brampton. The firm’s transportation subsidiary is hiring drivers for the yet-to-be-built Ingersoll compound. They will work out of Brampton until construction is finished.
“I just think we’re very excited. . . to expand in Canada,” Raham said.
John Tracy, head of Dot Foods Canada, said in the company’s statement there may be a future expansion of the Ingersoll facility to 500,000 square feet (45,000 square meters).
“This is great news for Ingersoll and Oxford,” Ernie Hardeman, the MPP for Oxford, said in the same statement. “Dot Foods Canada’s significant investment in our area is a boost to our local economy and shows our region is well positioned to meet the needs of new business.”
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