Cold Link Africa May/June 2016 Vol 1 No 5 | Page 39

PROJECT
INCORPORATING COLD CHAIN

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pallet trucks and fork trucks are batterydriven. The charging and replacement
of batteries is time consuming. “Our
procurement of mechanical handling
equipment from Goscor, included a
battery handling system (BHS) complete
with handling equipment, charging
stations and batteries. The system is the
most modern available and reduces the
replacement time of batteries to three to
four minutes,” says Van Zyl.
High pressure gas fire suppression
All low temperature chambers have a fire
suppression system charged with ‘Inergen’
gas. In the event of a fire, sensors detect
a rise in temperature and activate the
discharge of high pressure (300 bar) gas
from a bank of 692 cylinders each with
146kg of charge. The discharge of Inergen
reduces the oxygen level below that
required to support a flame but above
the safety limit for humans. Any staff in the
chamber at the time of the fire can then
safely leave.

The plant has a total
refrigeration capacity of
1 402kW with a coefficient
of performance (COP) of 4.3.
The fire suppression system at Linbro Park
is the first of its kind to be installed in South
Africa.
Passage-ways, the dispatch
and receiving bays are fitted with
conventional sprinkler systems charged
with water.
Imperial Cold Logistics do primary and
secondary distribution of poultry, fish,
yoghurts, and frozen foods for leading
processors. Brink Heinemann, manager

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of Imperial Cold Logistics, Linbro Park
explained further, “We also distribute
ice cream and that is the reason for
the -40°C chamber. Our fleet of 83
vehicles (4-28 tonnes) does secondary
distribution within a radius of 450km from
Linbro Park.” Its services include cross
docking and the handling of frozen raw
product. The raw product then leaves
the facility to be processed and often
returns as a packaged product for
secondary distribution. “Our focus is to
offer a synergised solution of primary and
or secondary distribution or we could
call it a one stop shop in the logistics of
refrigerated foodstuffs,” he says.
“The Linbro Park facility is the flagship of Imperial’s chain of seven stores
(Bloemfontein, Cape Town, Durban,
Polokwane, Port Elizabeth and Nelspruit)
around South Africa and will set the trends
for future developments,” says Van Zyl.
Next on the cards are a new store in
Durban and changes to the facility in
Cape Town. “Not all our stores will be
able to accommodate the sophistication
of Linbro Park, because of the volumes
handled, but as far as possible, we will
include the technology and expertise
gained from Linbro Park to our other
stores,” he says.
The construction of a multi-purpose, low
temperature cold storage facility of the
magnitude and sophistication of Linbro
Park, is not a common occurrence in South
Africa and yet the project team completed
it in what was at first considered an
impossible time frame. Van Zyl concludes:
“Multistage Cooling in particular went the
extra mile to make sure that by the end of
November we had chambers at -30°C and
access passage-ways at temperature – in
fact some staff commented on them being
too cold!” CLA

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1. Mobile racking increased the storage capacity at Linbro Park.
2. A limited