Tesco supplier finds new Riverside facility

Tesco supplier finds new Riverside facility British food supplier Wild Rocket Foods has signed a 15-year lease for a new 130,000-square-foot facility in Riverside’s Sycamore Canyon Business Park, after backing out of a temporary location in March due to construction delays.
   Financial details of the transaction were not released.
   The produce-supplying firm will serve British grocer Tesco, which has an 820,000-square-foot distribution center in the Meridian industrial center less than two miles from the Sycamore Canyon location.
   Tesco, one of the largest grocery chains in the United Kingdom, announced plans last year to venture into the American market, starting with dozens of stores in the Southwest.
   Wild Rocket was one of two British firms planning to move into the 1,000-acre Meridian development to support Tesco.
   Earlier this year, the firm was already facing more than $1.5 million to open a temporary facility while it awaited the construction of the Meridian facility. The final blow came in March when Wild Rocket learned they would be facing $4 million more than expected in wastewater disposals at the Meridian site.
   At a cost of $16.20 per gallon per day, the produce company would have had to pay $3.1 million this year based on the amount of water it planned to use, Jeff Sims, assistant general manager for the Western Municipal Water District told the Riverside Press-Enterprise at the time.
   Wild Rocket, which still plans to hire up to 150 people to produce packaged salads and other produce for British grocery retailer Tesco, estimated in March that it would save $5.6 million by finding another location. The new Sycamore facility is set to be completed at the end of the year.