INCORPORATING COLD CHAIN
FEATURE
Improving racking solutions for cold stores
By Ilana Koegelenberg
Cold stores are on the rise in South Africa as chilled and frozen food become increasingly popular. What is the best racking solution for the cold store of today?
The demands for efficient material handling, product logistics, optimal use of space, and maximum flexibility in locating, storing and retrieving of stock, are continuously pushing warehousing solutions toward new frontiers.
“ Optimising your storage space requires more than just a system,” explains Alastair Georgeson, CEO of Mr Shelf.“ It needs an integrated solution to address your current and future requirements and growth – smart solutions that are cost-effective, userfriendly and will make a real difference in your business performance.”
The rise of the cold store The cold store industry in South Africa only really took off in the 2000s, explains James Cunningham, managing director of Bapro Storage SA.“ There were cold stores before but the market for frozen food in this country was restricted to exports and a very small affluent portion of society.”
After about 2000, the need for frozen vegetables and chicken started to rise and it is still climbing. Previously the issue was that a large portion of the population didn’ t have fridges and freezers in their homes, so were unable to store frozen / chilled products. But as more people gained access to electricity, the need for temperature sensitive perishables( and thus cold stores) grew and is still growing.
“ There always was cold storage but the quantity of commercial cold storage has increased dramatically,” confirms Cunningham.
Another driver for the increase on cold stores was the fact that the diet of the lower income population has changed, and the consumption of frozen vegetables and chicken is on the rise.“ Although it may have peaked off currently because we’ re amidst a recession, that is only temporary,” says Cunningham. The same is true for the rest of Africa. But tinned food is still very popular because a large portion of Africa’ s population does not have access to refrigeration.( Apparently you can even buy butter and margarine in tins in some countries!)
“ We’ re actually looking at a revolution in eating habits, which has driven cold storage construction,” says Cunningham.
Finding the best design“ As the cost of building a cold store is 10 times that of an ambient warehouse, you should always try to maximise the space within,” says Brian Miles of SSI Schaefer.“ By building up you can make use of the available height and by equipping it with the right systems you can optimise the storage footprint without sacrificing operational efficiency.”
But when it comes to cold warehouses( say-20 ° C to-30 ° C), things get really interesting.“ The problem is quite simple: with building costs of a freezer being over R20 000 / m 2, we want to squeeze in
Automation is also an option inside a cold store but depends on the application( and budget).
as much capacity as possible,” explains Martin Bailey, chairman of Industrial Logistic Systems.“ On the other hand, as we increase capacity per square metre, we decrease flexibility and make order picking more difficult.”
Added to this conundrum is the fact that cold stores use lots of electricity and you want to try and reduce footprint, heat loss and flow in and out of the facility, says Bailey.“ This also drives us to reduce footprint and restrict flow, again working against simple flexibility. Good warehousing practice may thus not necessarily be good freezer practice.”
Where wide aisles, easy picking and lots of easy access may be good for ambient warehouses, this may not necessarily be true for a cold store running at-30 ° C. Essentially, the final design of a cold store is still highly dependent on the client’ s needs, but there are ways to get the most out of your cold store and optimising the racking system is one of the best ways to get more – not only in terms of efficiency, but also maximising capacity.
“ Because of the extreme cold temperatures and the high costs of building and operating the cold facilities, it is essential to make the operations as efficient as possible and to use appropriate technology,” says Bailey.
You can fit more pallets with mobile racking than conventional options.
COLD LINK AFRICA • May | June 2016 www. coldlinkafrica. co. za 27