Nairobi — Unilever East Africa today opened a Sh500 million warehouse facility to serve the East African (EA) market.

The 23,000-square-meter (SQM) facility can handle health and beauty products across EA.

Unilever Kenya Managing Director Luck Ochieng said that the newly constructed ultra-modern warehouse will not only grow the firm's turnover but also 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," added Ochieng.

The warehouse is equipped with the latest developments in automated storage and retrieval systems and has a greater pallet capacity, thereby helping the company store, process, and ship its products in an efficient manner.

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

70 percent of the raw and packaging materials that Unilever uses for production on the continent are made in Africa, which has a positive impact on access and affordability of our products."

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

"We strongly believe in the potential of this country and our consumers, and we are fully committed to playing a role in their respective growth stories."