Press Release

Fairn & Swanson, Opens New Headquarters and Distribution Center

FAIRN & SWANSON, INC. officially opened their new, 105,000 sq. ft. Corporate Headquarters and Distribution Center on March 6^th, 2002.  The former Del Monte warehouse, located in Oakland, California, overlooks the San Francisco Bay and includes 10,000 sq. ft. of modern, corporate offices and 95,000 sq. ft. of bonded warehousing to service their cruise line customers and a distribution center to supply Baja Duty Free, their rapidly growing, retail business on the US/Mexico border.

The new location maintains the advantage of proximity to the Ports of San Francisco and Oakland and enables F&S to cost effectively and efficiently service their North American and Pacific Rim cruise line customers as well as supply their west coast warehouses and retail stores.

The facility includes expanded management and administration facilities. It also houses a new data center, providing centralized control and information for the retail and wholesale businesses.  This provides F&S with the ability to automatically monitor and replenish their Baja retail stores on a weekly basis, ensuring that customer demands will be met and fulfilled.  “With more than 5000 skus of retail inventory, we have to ensure a timely re- supply to maintain our customers. The newest Baja Duty Free store, a pedestrian opening in June, has an projected average daily traffic of 28,000 passengers.

 The modern warehouse facility combines four previous facilities and includes cross-dock and dedicated rail access for fast movement of domestic and international shipments.  The use of high-speed computer networks, data connections and web based and EDI solutions allows F&S and their customers to manage shipments. This coupled with in-house customs brokerage and freight forwarding provides a seamless movement of goods and services to F&S’s customers and stores.

 “This facility is designed to meet the needs of F&S for the next five years.  It will allow us to control and manage our business and the expected growth of people, systems and merchandise required to make it successful”, said Ned Trippe – the designer of the facility and Project Manager. 

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