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.

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.