Cardinal Depot was built and opened in 1995 on Cardinal Distribution Park, Godmanchester. It was first leased to and run by Wincanton plc and Exel for Somerfield. Through the years the building has been run by many organisations until 2011; 2 years after the Co-operative Group purchased Somerfield. This is when Co-op took over the lease and Wincanton plc provided transport. At the peak of service to 400 Co-op and society stores Cardinal depot made 100 trips per day delivering 100,000 cases across 24 counties, travelling as far north as Louth, as far east as Great Yarmouth, as far south as Brighton and as far west as Oxford. Colleagues work 24 hours a day, 363 days a year. Cardinal Depot has been the workplace of thousands of local people; some have met, married and had children of their own who have been a part of its journey!
Showing the Co-operative values, colleagues join together to fundraise; making a difference and giving back to their community with donations of food and money where ever they could. Three colleagues even formed a band called The Blue Clovers who raised money for the homeless busking outside stores and at events! 2021 saw a bumper year of hard work feeding the nation during the pandemic and fundraising. They presented £1,600 in cheques given to 6 local causes including Huntingdon Community Action Projects and Hemingford Grey School. £3,152 towards their National charity partner MIND. £4,279 for multiple national and local causes including Huntingdonshire Community Group, Millfield Community Fridge, Macmillan, Hinchingbrooke Hospital and Peterborough children’s home. They donated over 20,000 cases of food donated to multiple causes including Godmanchester Foodbank, Huntingdon Together community fridge, Hunters Down Care home and Diamond Hampers CIC.
With the increase in demand on the Co-op logistics network and Cardinal being a smaller fresh only pick operation it saw the need for a much larger scale distribution centre that is able to pick and transport fresh, frozen and ambient products to many more stores especially with their ambition to increase the number of stores in the south of the UK. In January this year Co-op officially opened their 660,000 square feet Biggleswade distribution centre, the biggest, most sustainable and environmentally friendly in their network. So on Saturday 18th June Cardinal made its last deliveries and colleagues bid farewell as they finish their redundancy journey together. Colleagues would like to thank their community for embracing them over the years and wish whom ever may take over Cardinal all the very best!
