Supermarket giant Coles will invest $1.1 billion in new stores over the next three years, including refrigeration upgrades across Australia.
In the past five years alone, the Wesfarmers-owned supermarket chain has opened 100 new stores and refurbished another 350.
The new investment will create 70 new stores and more than 16,000 jobs.
Since 2008, Coles has spent over $3 billion in rebuilding stores across Australia, with the retailer currently employing more than 100,000 people.
The newer stores are at least 15 per cent larger than older stores, averaging around 2500sqm compared to 2200.
Future stores will be larger still, averaging around 2800sqm.
The Australian Workforce and Productivity Agency released a report in March forecasting 8.9 per cent growth in the retail sector employment by 2017, a projected rise of 109,1000 jobs.
Retail sector employment is expected to grow 1.7 per cent a year over the next five years, well above the 0.2 per cent annual average over the last five years and the one per cent average over the last decade.
Coles says it is committed to designing, testing and trialling environmentally safe carbon dioxide refrigeration systems in a bid to improve energy efficiency.
There are now more than 44 stores using carbon dioxide refrigerant and this number will rise significantly as new stores open and existing ones are retrofitted.
For example, the Coles store in Katoomba, west of Sydney, uses a cascade carbon dioxide refrigeration system with a 1.2-tonne charge of carbon dioxide on the ‘low side’ servicing the cabinets, and a 400-kilogram charge of R134a on the ‘high side’ that is contained in the plant room.
Using this system to run both refrigeration and air conditioning demands is estimated to deliver around a seven per cent reduction in energy consumption compared to conventional stores.