CVS leans on robots to stock its stores from a New Jersey warehouse

HAINESPORT, N.J., June 2026 — At a CVS warehouse in New Jersey, robots now store and retrieve the health and beauty products bound for its stores, and staff sort them, CVS says. Here's what launched, what it cost, and what went wrong.

Cost and outcome (as of June 8, 2026)

Volume, per CVS: about 2 million items a week, "a significant increase" since automation began in 2023. (CVS Health)
Volume, per Tompkins: 150,000 units a day before, over 400,000 after, or 1.9 million a week. (Tompkins Robotics)
Accuracy: over 99.9% pick accuracy, Tompkins says. (Tompkins Robotics)
Cost: not disclosed. Tompkins claims 40% lower costs than other CVS distribution centers.

What launched

CVS described the site in a June 3, 2026 feature. Behind walls "reaching nearly three stories high, hundreds of robots work in coordination," moving products through an automated storage-and-retrieval system. The Hainesport center handles health, beauty and personal care items that stores need in smaller quantities. It carries about 10,000 products. Pharmaceuticals and bulk shipments are handled elsewhere in the network, CVS said.

About 150 people work at the site, and CVS plans to add staff over the coming year.

How it works

The AutoStore grid stores and retrieves bins of products. Tompkins says its tSort robots then sort the items for store orders. Tompkins' case study says the combined system has over 420 robots serving 582 pick locations (its blog post lists 294 tSort robots), and that operators can be trained in 15 minutes. Its case study says the robots needed only 160,000 square feet to match the output of a traditional 1,000,000-square-foot warehouse.

Inside the building, per CVS

CVS's own account puts people at the center of the sorting. Robots retrieve totes from the grid and bring them to workstations, where CVS staff sort the items and route them to specific stores. Products like deodorant, skin care items and household basics move in reusable tote bins. Automated palletizing systems stack totes by weight, and robotic arms handle wrapping and staging.

The site supplies stores across the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic, CVS says. "For our store teams, what matters most is knowing that shipments arrive as expected, are accurate, and are easy to work with," said Josh White, CVS Health's chief supply chain and logistics officer. CVS did not say how many stores the center serves or how much the system cost to install.

Two accounts of one site

Tompkins' undated case study calls the building the Lumberton Distribution Center, "1,000,000+ square-foot," serving the Northeast and New York City area. CVS calls it Hainesport. The two townships are neighbors; we could not confirm whether the accounts describe the same building. Supply Chain Digital, in its June 8 report, treated them as two sites, saying CVS also uses the same technologies "at a nearby centre in Lumberton, New Jersey."

The figures also differ in detail. Tompkins' blog claims "40% lower operational costs compared to other CVS distribution centers"; its PDF says "40% lower picking costs." The PDF also said CVS would "expand to 750 robots" by the second quarter of 2026. CVS's June feature says only "hundreds."

What the companies said

"The automation in use at our Hainesport, NJ facility is helping us get products to our stores more efficiently than ever before," White said. In the Tompkins case study, Jamie Tatum, a CVS lead director of supply chain strategy, said: "We've been breaking records almost every week."

What went wrong

Two site names. Hainesport (CVS) and Lumberton (Tompkins).
Two cost claims. Operational costs or picking costs, depending on the Tompkins document.
Robot count unclear. "Hundreds," "over 420" or a planned 750.
What we don't know yet: the investment, whether the 750-robot expansion happened, and how staffing changed.

Our follow-up question for CVS Health

Are Hainesport and Lumberton the same facility, and how many robots work there now?

Sources

CVS Health, “Powering store readiness: How supply chain automation helps CVS Pharmacy move products with precision,” June 3, 2026. cvshealth.com
Tompkins Robotics, “CVS Boosts Fulfillment Throughput by 160% with Robotic Systems,” May 2, 2025. tompkinsrobotics.com
Tompkins Robotics, CVS case study (PDF). tompkinsrobotics.com
Supply Chain Digital, Andre Ellington, “Who CVS Pharmacy is Working With for Warehouse Automation,” June 8, 2026. supplychaindigital.com
Toyota Industries, “Toyota Industries to Acquire Bastian Solutions LLC to Bolster Materials Handling Solutions Business in North America,” Feb. 3, 2017. toyota-industries.com

Disclosure: [not in copy] Editor placeholder