Martin Jones of Narrow Aisle explains how articulated forklift trucks can maximise space utilisation and boost performance for warehouse operators challenged by a growing demand for cold storage.
As the UK experiences a long summer of heatwaves, it is worth considering the importance of the cold storage sector. Despite having the largest cold storage capacity in Europe, the UK does indeed need even more cold store space to support successful food, retail and pharmaceutical supply chains.
Gaining more space is not always about constructing new warehouses; existing facilities can be used more purposefully. One way of doing this is through technology innovations, such as the integration of IoT (Internet of Things) and AI (Artificial Intelligence), which can improve operational efficiency and monitoring capabilities in cold stores. But just as important are established solutions for optimising warehouse space, such as articulated forklift trucks.
In fact, Flexi Narrow Aisle®, which has many customers who specialise in cold storage, can provide a Flexi Cold Store articulated lift truck that has been developed for continuous use down to –30 degrees centigrade.
This is good news for UK operators seeking high density storage involving narrow aisles in different types of cold stores to accommodate growing demand for perishable goods, frozen foods, online grocery or pharmaceutical products.
Perishable goods such as fresh produce, dairy products and ready-to-eat meals require chilled storage, which forms a big part of the UK cold storage estate. These facilities are maintained at temperatures of between 0 and 5 degrees centigrade to preserve these increasing popular product groups.
Frozen is the other big part of cold storage where, depending on their type, goods are stored at temperatures from –18 to –30 degrees centigrade. Frozen food is growing in popularity due to a longer shelf life, reduced food waste and because it offers convenience for those preparing meals at home. Ocado Retail Data reported at the end of 2025 that sales of frozen products were up 18% year-on-year and that almost half of UK adults have increased frozen purchases in the past year – with younger shoppers leading the way. Three quarters say frozen food helps save them time when they’re busy, whilst 73% believe quality has improved in recent years. This points to a continued rise in demand for frozen product.
The desire for convenience is also a key factor in the UK’s online grocery market being the most developed in the world, accounting for just over 34% of the European market in 2025, according to Market Data Forecast. As of March 2026, Statista research found the number of people in the UK ordering groceries through online platforms reached around 28.6 million, representing a 5.15 percent growth from the previous year. Cold storage plays a vital role in fulfilling those orders.
Outside of the food sector the continually developing pharmaceutical sector delivers innovations – the covid vaccines and weight loss drugs to name just two – that can quickly create enormous demand. Many of these products require temperature-controlled environments that can maintain specific conditions, often between 2 and 8 degrees centigrade.
High density storage and new cold store operations
While the cold storage market is expanding in all these areas, operators are challenged to find high density cold storage solutions. Keeping storage areas chilled or frozen – the latter requiring around four times the energy of a normal warehouse – is a costly operation, particularly at a time of rising energy costs. Opting for articulated forklift trucks allows narrow aisle configurations in a cold store to optimise pallet storage density.
Flexi articulated forklift trucks can be deployed inside freezers to place and pick pallets that have been deposited by other forklifts or power pallet trucks, but their versatile design means that they can also collect and deliver urgent customer product loads directly to or from the waiting delivery vehicles at the loading docks.
The need to deliver greater pallet selectivity and order assembly is changing the way many warehouses operate. For example, traditional cold stores mainly housed food stuffs as frozen food was not seen as attractive as fresh. This generally led to the majority of movements in and out of the store being full pallet loads. However, as customer perceptions around frozen food become more positive, as demonstrated by the increasingly popularity of frozen ready meals, then cold stores will increasingly need to be configured to allow more complex picking and individual customer orders to be assembled.
For such an application, installing very narrow aisle trucks guided by either steel rails or inductive wires cut into the floor is an option. However, steel guide rails can limit access to key ground level picking locations, and the aisles may even be too narrow for low-level order picking.
A combination of Flexi® articulated forklift trucks and low-level order pickers, however, would offer an advantage. Because a Flexi® does not require wire guidance or steel rails, aisle widths can be set to suit an operation’s order assembly profile. In this scenario, the lack of steel guide rails means the first rack beam can be set at 2-metres to allow fast case picking.
Operating turret trucks in very narrow aisle racking may be another option under consideration, but this requires a 5-metre wide transfer aisle, which wastes valuable storage space within a cold storage facility. A potential alternative solution, however, can involve powered mobile racking with very narrow aisles fed by Flexi® trucks to optimise storage density of chill and frozen storage chambers at the same time as allowing individual pallet accessibility.
Working in the cold
Of course, it is essential that any forklifts operating in a cold store are properly adapted to suit the cold store environment in which they work. All Flexi® Cold Store models can be specified with a heated cab, allowing continuous operation of a cold store truck fleet for maximum efficiency in a blast freezer and other high throughput operations.
These trucks have specially designed robust electrical and hydraulic systems, with zinc coating for all the main components of the trucks and other parts cold store specified, which will also allow intermittent use between cold and ambient environments.
The build quality and reputation for extreme reliability of the Flexi® are important factors in cold stores where downtime incurs higher operational costs. Sites where Flexis have been introduced report an increase in reliability levels as well as productivity. Disruption can also be minimised through ensuring availability of ‘ready to use’ battery power. This can be achieved by having two heavy–duty batteries and 6-hour chargers for each unit, so whenever one battery is in use, the other is charging. The quick and easy battery changeover developed by Flexi takes just a minute or so to complete. In addition Lithium Ion Power can be used to negate the need for battery change.
While contending with issues such as stricter food-safety laws and rising energy costs, operators of warehouse cold stores must also find ways to meet the challenges place on them by rising pharmaceutical exports, the continued expansion of online grocery or growing demand for chilled and frozen foods. Proven articulated forklift truck based high density storage offers a truly advantageous solution.
