Cold Chain Perspectives

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Choosing how to occupy a warehouse is a critical decision for any food processor, manufacturer or distributor.

In a world where the average cold storage facility is four decades old and demand continues to surge, navigating the landscape of real estate for refrigerated or frozen space becomes a monumental challenge for businesses of all sizes.

The importance of cold storage real estate for U.S. food security cannot be overstated. The decisions food supply chain managers make today can affect the food supply of Americans for generations to come.

An automated storage and retrieval system (ASRS) combines equipment and controls to handle, store and retrieve materials or products as needed with precision, accuracy and speed under a defined degree of automation. 

Many of the world’s largest grocery retailers are now investing in automated order fulfillment solutions to optimize the handling of fresh fruit, vegetables, bakery items and dairy products across their distribution networks.

Trust in Private Brands is at an all-time high, with private brand consultant Daymon’s proprietary research showing 89% of consumers trust Private Brands just as much as if not more than National Brands.

As markets grow, and tastes and regulations change, every segment of the pizza industry is being challenged to deliver more authenticity and taste with less salt and sugar and zero artificial ingredients.

Many warehouses and distribution centers suffer from fragmented processes with operational decisions made by manual planners who rely heavily on tribal knowledge. 

The main challenge in developing an effective OGP cold-storage solution is that there is no one-size-fits-all answer for the unique physical infrastructure and footprint that each retrieval site possesses.

Across the U.S., new voluntary industry standards for food date labelling have recently been adopted. Under this system, “use-by” dates are applied to foods as a “deadline” when a food will then present a high food poisoning risk.