NewCold and B-Built Break Ground for State-of-the-Art Automated Coldstore in Bretagne

NewCold and B-Built have broken ground for building NewCold’s Automated Coldstore, located in Montauban-de-Bretagne, near Rennes.

The coldstore will use state of the art technology including automated storage and retrieval systems (ASRS) to automatically move and store products in the ‘dark’ high-bay warehouse. The equipment and operators will be directed by advanced software systems, while products are kept in optimal conditions with all coldstore areas cooled down to temperatures as low as – 23°C.

This advanced cold chain solution ensures that processes are sustainable, traceable, fully integrated with the processes of NewCold’s customers and always at the very forefront of technological developments. It offers a high and consistent logistic service level and above all, offers a more sustainable and better food safety alternative than more conventional coldstore solutions.

The futuristic multi-customer coldstore enables food producers, including Froneri as anchor customer, to optimise their cold chain management, with increased agility and responsiveness to better serve the needs of their domestic and international end customers, 24/7.

Bram Hage, Founding Executive Officer, of NewCold says, “With this ground-breaking development, NewCold brings to Montauban-de-Bretagne, Rennes, the Brittany region and France, 20 years of leadership in automated cold storage development and operations. Although our roots are in the Netherlands, our heart is with global food producers where ever NewCold can bring value. We could not be more pleased than to stand as partners beside B-Built and our sponsoring customer, Froneri.”

“NewCold highly values trusted partnerships and the partnerships created to realise this efficient, giant freezer are very special. Our sincere thanks to the City of Montauban-de-Bretagne for their critical support and guidance. They are easy to work with and clearly focused on economic growth through leading technologies and we are thrilled to be investing here.”

The state-of-the-art freezer is a joint design effort and construction by NewCold and B-Built. The facility will be one of the largest in France with a storage capacity of over 700.000 m3 comparable to the volume of one million household refrigerators.

“B-Built is excited to partner with NewCold on this facility, their second in France,” says Martijn Baartmans, CEO of B-Built. “The unique method used to build this facility, and the technologies incorporated within the facility are the way of the future, and we’re pleased to team with them and their storage partners to make it a reality. Leading edge technologies used in addition to the automated pallet retrieval systems, are the monorail system, the low-oxygen environment eliminating the risk of fire from the inside entirely, and the total building design needing only half the energy consumed by conventional cold stores to keep the products optimally frozen.”

The permitting team at the City of Montauban-de-Bretagne, worked conscientiously to review permits and get the construction off to a smooth start. “From the very first meeting, this project was off to a great start with successful teamwork between company representatives, designers, project managers and our permitting folks.”

NewCold is an integrated service provider for cold chain logistics based in the Netherlands. NewCold operates a network of large scale automated cold stores and refrigerated transport serving frozen food producers on 3 continents. Its innovative coldstores are operated in the USA, Australia, France, Germany, United Kingdom and Poland. NewCold is further expanding its operations, building on decades of know-how in developing and operating advanced cold chain logistics solutions. www.newcold.com

B-Built, a construction services company based in the Netherlands, designs and builds industrial facilities throughout Europe. Offering turnkey building solutions to the cold storage and food processing industries, B-Built’s team of builders, architects and structural engineers are known for building highly efficient facilities that deliver on investment. The company has steadily grown over the last eleven years to become the company that it is today. www.b-built.com/