Pizza company Domino’s is opening a new supply chain centre in Naas in Co Kildare after a €16m investment and over two years of construction.
The new facility uses state-of-the-art equipment to produce, store, and ship fresh dough and ingredients to Domino’s stores across the country.
The pizza company says the new facility will increase capacity in Ireland by around 40% and comes as Domino’s is looking to fill 500 positions in its stores ahead of Christmas, including jobs for delivery drivers, in-store workers and pizza makers.
Domino’s said the new centre can manufacture dough at a much faster rate than previously, thanks to automated robots which place its freshly made doughballs into trays on the manufacturing line, running up to 950 trays an hour, compared to 450 trays before.
The facility will employ about 50 workers, bringing the total number of Domino’s roles in Ireland to around 3,000. This year marks 34 years of Domino’s in Ireland.
The managing director for Domino’s Ireland, Annelie McCaffrey, said the opening of its new supply chain centre in Naas is a powerful demonstration of its commitment to accelerating growth in Ireland.
“We’re a nation of food lovers and the easing inflation, robust labour market and recovery in disposable incomes, means the market has incredible growth potential for Domino’s,” she said.
“We have already opened five new stores in the past year and have ambitious plans for the rest of 2024 and beyond,” she added.
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Speaking on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland Ms McCaffrey said the new supply chain centre will allow the company to service over 130 stores – Domino’s currently has 103 stores in Ireland.
Domino’s is also seeking to recruit more employees to service the expansion.
“As we introduce new stores, there’ll be a further 900 roles needed to service them,” the pizza company’s Irish MD said, adding that 20-30 staff members are needed to operate each new store.
Regarding the 500 seasonal jobs Domino’s is looking to fill, Ms McCaffrey said “this is for our busy peak periods and we do it every year”.
She added that once the peak period is over, some people will stay with the company afterwards and many are happy to be employed for just that period.
She said higher costs are also affecting operations.
“Inflation has impacted our business but we have had some benefit with cheese, which is a commodity for us. Whereas other things have remained volatile,” she noted.