Feb 1st, 2021
9 mins
Food waste is contributing to a global climate catastrophe, and the existence of reliable and efficient cold storage in the UK is critical to minimising wastage. BFFF research has shown that switching from fresh to frozen can actually reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but refrigeration is still energy intensive.
NewCold Advanced Cold Logistics strives to increase global food security by providing leading food companies with the most innovative cold storage and transportation services. The company has an international network with eight locations on three continents, holding 730,000 pallet positions worldwide.
Always striving to reduce the impact of its operations on the environment and local communities, NewCold optimises existing and new innovative concepts in the cold chain to achieve the best for its customers and the industry at large.
Our company believes the efficient use of natural resources, together with healthy local community and employee relations, are key elements which lead to outstanding financial results and business prosperity.
In keeping with this philosophy, NewCold incorporates a Triple Bottom Line framework in its core operations which enables the evaluation of company performance from different perspectives, while creating greater overall transparency.
This unique approach embraces three distinct criteria: Planet, People and Profit. Firstly, NewCold recognise that all its facilities consume energy and use air and water for cooling purposes, and so employ sustainable solutions wherever possible.
Then, in regarding their people as their greatest strength and most valuable asset, the company encourages all employees to focus on creating customer satisfaction, to promote long term customer relationships and sustainable revenues.
Thirdly, NewCold employ the simple formula whereby efficient operations combined with satisfied customers contribute to a competitive advantage, which in turn leads to commercial success.
This sustainable methodology is the driving force behind the success of NewCold’s existing Wakefield site and already is providing the operational foundations for a new deep-freeze facility due to open in Corby in 2021.
As with each of our sites world-wide, our focus at the new Corby facility will be on sustainability. Both the Wakefield and Corby sites are fashioned on our unique cold store design and use around 50% less energy than conventional stores. This, coupled with our ability to reduce food miles by using high-volume trailers, will greatly reduce CO2 emissions and energy use.
The new Corby facility sits on a 23-acre plot which is a prime location in the logistics ‘golden triangle’. The site is in proximity with frozen distribution centres of retail and food service customers and perfectly located to help minimise consignment handling and logistics costs.
Key to the delivery of NewCold’s energy efficiency is the company’s state of the art warehouse management systems and fully automated handling equipment. These include FEFO handling (First Expired, First Out); shipment buffer zones to minimise truck waiting times; automated storage and racking; bespoke picking floors with automated replenishment and pallet discharge. All of which combine to increase efficiency and reduce energy consumption.
For example, the Wakefield facility, with a footprint of 129m x 170m and storage height of 41m, handles 4,000,000 pallets annually and in a 24-hour day can receive and dispatch up to 18,000 deep frozen pallets.
Drawing on the latest available automated loading technology, NewCold has designed a bespoke pallet handling Pod to bridge the gap between the deep-frozen production or storage environment and its auto-loading 44-pallet double-deck trailers.
To this end, as soon as the product leaves the production line at minus 22 degrees, it is automatically loaded through a sliding door at the back of the 60-pallet-capacity Pod, which itself is pre-cooled to the same temperature. From here, the pallets are automatically transferred into the double-deck trailer, docked to the front of the Pod.
Loading into the Pod is completed in around five minutes. Meanwhile, three Carrier TRS refrigeration systems hold the temperature at a constant minus 25 degrees and, being electric running off the factory, keep harmful emissions to a minimum.
Effectively, every deep-frozen package or pallet remains at a constant set temperature of minus 22 – minus 25 degrees, and at no time during its journey from the production line to completed loading in the trailer does any pallet need to be exposed to an ambient environment or touched by an operative. This not only ensures absolute temperature integrity but virtually eliminates product damage.
The same process is reversed when the load reaches the NewCold warehouse where automatic unloading capability unloads the trailer in five minutes, directly into a frozen warehouse, ensuring best product integrity and quality.
Furthermore, faster turnaround times reduce supply chain cost and, by linking directly to production loading, efficiencies are achieved at production sites. In addition, the company’s innovative double-deck trailers make a positive impact on the environment by significantly reducing road miles.
To help control this colossal, non-stop operation NewCold uses a proprietary Warehouse Management System (WMS) which is produced by daughter company Davanti Warehousing. Working in the company’s eight facilities around the world, the cloud-based system, called CORAX, employs Software as a Service (SaaS) to control all movements in the operation, while providing constant real-time information regarding consignments and equipment performance.
Article from The Frozen Food Report 2021 – view full report here
