Corby, UK: NewCold’s bespoke pallet handling pods, used at its Wakefield site, (pictured) will be used at the new site in Corby, due to open this autumn.
The pods bridge the gap between the frozen production or storage environment and NewCold’s auto-loading 44-pallet double-deck trailers.
As product leaves the production line at minus 22 degrees, it is automatically loaded into a 60-pallet pod cooled to the same temperature. From here the pallets are automatically loaded into double-deck trailers, docked to the front of the pod.
Three refrigeration systems hold the temperature at a constant minus 25 degrees. With loading into the pod completed in just 5 minutes, every deep-frozen package or pallet remains at a set temperature of minus 22 to 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 handled by person. This ensures temperature integrity and reduces product damage.
The same process is reversed when the load reaches the warehouse where the trailer is automatically unloaded directly into a frozen store. Faster turnaround times reduce supply chain cost and by linking directly to production loading, efficiencies are achieved at production sites.
In 2015 NewCold made its first foray into the UK, opening an automated, 40m-high cold store plant in Wakefield, Yorkshire. The company already operates coldstores in the France, Germany and Poland and plans sites in the USA and Australia.
