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The company from Bergamo created two new warehouses in the Food&Beverage sector

Since 2020, with the spread of Covid-19, consumers’ interest in buying groceries online has increased. The 2021 European Report on e-commerce, in fact, revealed that over the first year of the pandemic in Europe, online sales of food goods grew to 757 billion euros, with a 10% increase with respect to 690 billion in 2019. As a result, many players in the Food&Beverage sector wanted and had to renovate their logistics spaces, caused by the new complexity derived from the production and food distribution chain.

One of these companies is Aviko, a world leader in the sector of potatoes with headquarters in Steenderen, The Netherlands. For over 50 years, the company has created high-quality products and over time has expanded to over 100 countries. To follow the wave of growth in the Food&Beverage sector, Aviko decided to increase its activity, commissioning Automha, the company from Bergamo that specializes in planning, producing, and installing complex automation systems in the intralogistics sector, two automated warehouses in two different European counties. The first establishment was created in The Netherlands and has been in operation since 2020, while the second, underway since the beginning of 2022, is in Belgium.

For the plant in Steenderen, The Netherlands, Aviko asked the company from Bergamo the study and creation of an auto-sufficient warehouse at refrigerated temperatures (-27°C), that allowed the storage of pallets 80×120 cm and 100×120 cm, with a maximum capacity of 40,000 load units.

The Automha team studied a layout including a completely automatic robotized area attached to the warehouse and built with 11 levels of multi-depth storage, thus giving Aviko the possibility to satisfy every request by its clients creating multi-reference pallets. Furthermore, the installation simultaneously manages 150 inbound load units per hour and 300 outbound load units per hour.

For the creation of the warehouse in Steenderen, Automha used:

• 33 Autosatmover + 33 Supercap, the latest-generation, completely automatic modular system, for the automation of multi-depth pallet storage;
• 6 32-meter-high cranes;
• 2 8-meter-high cranes
• 3 Rushmover loops, Automha’s modular circuit with a total of 19 vehicles;
• 2 robotized islands for the outfitting of mixed pallets;
• 2 Miniloads, for the storage of containers or trays, used in cases of high flows of good withdrawals of significant weight;
• 300 conveyor systems including roller conveyors, catenaries, rotating tables and orthogonal transfers.

Once a model able to satisfy the needs of the company was built, Automha created a standard model that is functional, excluding every risk of complications, and most importantly, replicable.

The second warehouse in Poperinge, Belgium, able to hold a maximum of 50,000 load units was born like this. This system is also auto-sufficient at refrigerated temperatures (-27°), able to simultaneously manage up to 180 inbound units per hour and 280 outbound units per hour, quickly and precisely. At each storage level, an AutosatMover with Supercap, is installed, the Automha satellite created to work in multi-depth within completely automated systems, for a total of 39 shuttles. Within the Belgian warehouse, there are 3 RushMover circuits, on which 22 shuttles are installed in charge of the system that is loading the warehouse.

Furthermore, a warehouse with a stacker crane was built for the management of 182 trays. The plant acts as a buffer for the frozen, depalletized boxes from the anthropomorphic robots. With customer-owned refrigerated rooms, the warehouse is flexible to Aviko’s every need. As a result, processes are more efficient and logistics costs are lower.  Automha’s automation system can reduce the stationary times of inbound and outbound pallets.

For the creation of the warehouse in Poperinge, Automha used:

• 39 AutosatMover + 39 Supercap;
• 6 38-meter-high cranes;
• 2 7-meter-high cranes;
• 3 RushMover loops, with a total of 22 vehicles;
• 2 robotized islands for the outfitting of mixed pallets;
• 2 5-meter-high Miniloads