Australian supermarket group Coles is set to invest AUD360 million (USD321.4m) in Victoria and create 3,500 jobs across the state, according to Premier Denis Napthine and Coles Managing Director Ian McLeod.
Napthine joined McLeod at Parliament house last week to make the announcement and celebrate the centenary of Coles as an Australian-owned company.
The retail giant is planning to add 14 new stores this year – 8 in Melbourne and 6 across regional Victoria. Four new stores will be built in Victoria’s Geelong region with an investment of AUD130m.
"Across Victoria, building is already underway at three of the stores: Collingwood, Cowes on Phillip Island, Waurn Ponds in Geelong and construction of another two stores – at Lara and Torquay – forecast to commence before mid-year," said Napthine.
"Planning is also underway for new stores on freehold properties in Coburg North, Surrey Hills and Epping North in Melbourne and in regional growth areas of Drysdale and Woodend," he added.
Coles has already opened a super store at Craigieburn in Melbourne’s growth corridor this financial year, plus new stores in Mill Park Lakes, Brighton and Cardinia Lakes.
In addition to the AUD320m on new stores, Coles will spend an extra AUD40m to refurbish existing stores across Victoria.
Since 2008, Coles has spent over AUD3 billion in rebuilding stores across Australia to improve their layout and transform the range of products on offer to customers. In the past five years, Coles has opened 100 new stores and refurbished a further 350 stores nationally.
Across Victoria, Coles currently employs nearly 28,000 team members at its supermarkets, liquor and Coles Express stores, support centres and distribution centres.
Economic analysis by Deloitte Access Economics shows that in addition to the 103,000 team members employed by Coles across Australia, another 120,000 are created by Coles’s spend in the community.