Fashion retailer ASOS, which lost £20 million of stock to a suspected arson attack at its warehouse in Barnsley in 2014, has been hit by a warehouse fire once again – this time at its new Eurohub warehouse in Germany.
The fire, which happened on Tuesday, damaged clothes worth up to £6 million in the blaze thanks to the fire and water damage that ensued, said ASOS.
However, the blaze affected only one of the four chambers in the building with orders redirected to Barnsley as a result, said the company. The new facility has only been fulfilling orders for ASOS since March after it was handed over to the retailer last September.
“At 3.00am on Tuesday 16th May 2017, a fire broke out in our new Eurohub 2 Distribution Centre based outside of Berlin,” the company said in a press statement. “A full evacuation was conducted successfully with no injuries to the team. All relevant safety measures were executed as planned and the fire was contained to one of the four chambers in the first phase of the development. Contingency plans were executed successfully with customer orders currently being fulfilled via our Barnsley warehouse.
As at Monday 15th May 2017, the business held c7m units of stock within the Eurohub 2 facility. There were c2.0m units of stock in the affected chamber with a cost value of c£25m of which our initial estimate of 25% or c£6.25m could be compromised by fire and water damage.”
The company said the technology, automation and structure of the building were not affected by the fire and that it was fully insured for loss of stock and any subsequent business interruption.
Image credit: ASOS Barnsley warehouse is pictured