Fackelmann

A warehouse worth turning around for

When your bread-and-butter is managing thousands of products across multiple retail and hospitality channels, the design of your warehouse is crucial. At Fackelmann New Zealand’s purpose-built Highbrook facility, every detail – from a covered container breezeway to the building’s unusual 180-degree rotation – reflects a simple philosophy: design the space around how the business actually works.

Taking the warehouse back

For years, a third-party logistics provider managed Fackelmann’s distribution in New Zealand. It was intended to be a five-year arrangement, but that stretched to seven years during the COVID-19 pandemic.

For some businesses, outsourcing logistics makes sense. But with thousands of individual products, Fackelmann didn’t have enough control over how they were stored, picked, and shipped.

“We’re quite a SKU-heavy company – there’s such a diverse range of products that we supply,” explains Rachel Baker, Fackelmann’s Front Office Receptionist.

The company had already been part of Highbrook for many years. Fackelmann’s long-standing relationship with Goodman stretches back well before the current building – at another Highbrook site in the mid- 2000s, and earlier at a Mount Wellington facility.

Fackelmann valued both the location and the wider community of businesses operating from Highbrook – and was keen to stay. The new build also allowed the team to add new sustainability features such as water collection and EV charging.

“It’s a really crucial and central location for us – and it’s a beautiful business park to work in,” Rachel adds.

When a parcel of land became available at 70 Waiouru Road – one of the last remaining development sites within Goodman’s Highbrook portfolio – it provided the perfect opportunity for Fackelmann to bring its warehousing operation back in-house, in a facility designed specifically for its needs.

Construction began in early 2022, with the warehouse and office building completed in March 2023. The Fackelmann team moved in later that same year.