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You need to wrap up heat to enter the biggest automated chilly storage warehouse within the UK, the place pallets loaded with chips and pizzas velocity alongside rails and are lifted by robots right into a 15-deck storage dice that’s longer and wider than a soccer subject. Put on a thick coat, hat and gloves for the minus 23C temperature, and neglect a pen: the ink will freeze.
It’s like strolling into the freezer compartment of a kitchen fridge, besides that this field is gigantic and the oxygen is diminished to restrict the danger of fires. The pallets sit six-deep inside tall columns of metal racks, loaded and retrieved by machines which might be monitored by people in a heat management room close by. As I gaze up into the heights, I take notes utilizing a borrowed pencil.
This chilly dice in Corby, the previous steelmaking city in Northamptonshire, is owned by NewCold, a Dutch firm that has saved and delivered frozen meals for producers resembling McCain Meals, Unilever and the UK-based ice cream group Froneri. Pallets are introduced in refrigerated vehicles and despatched to supermarkets on demand: 4,000 pallets move out and in every day.
It’s huge even for NewCold, which operates 22 services globally: Corby is its second largest after a $300mn retailer in Indiana, which opened in 2023. However it’s the tip of a chilly chain iceberg. Different cubes have risen within the Midlands “logistics triangle” as international firms resembling NewCold and Lineage of the US remodel the trade.
The closest factor to a UK rival to NewCold is Magnavale, which this month opened a £130mn automated chilly storage facility close to Grantham in Lincolnshire with 101,000 pallet areas, in contrast with 151,000 at Corby. It’s primarily based in Chesterfield however owned by Sadel Group, the Luxembourg-based household workplace of Stephen Lawrence, a British property developer.
The trade has been extremely fragmented, with many family-owned operators of warehouses wherein pallets are transported on fork carry vehicles. These are giving method to automated cubes which might be expensive to construct however environment friendly to run: 160 individuals work in Corby, a 3rd of the quantity {that a} conventional handbook retailer would wish.
Cubes occupy much less land and use much less electrical energy, which is important as vitality costs and environmental requirements rise. The UK trade spent £1.2bn final 12 months on vitality and a 3rd of its services are greater than 25 years previous, in keeping with the Chilly Chain Federation. Many services should be upgraded, and it’s tougher to retrofit than construct anew.
NewCold is a part of this evolution. It was based within the Netherlands in 2012 by Bram Hage, a former soccer participant, with backing from the US personal fairness agency Westport Capital Companions. The Netherlands has a big logistics trade and “produces an enormous quantity of french fries”, he notes. It has taken this experience in storage and frozen greens worldwide.
Together with Corby, NewCold has a big facility in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, to serve the north of England (Lineage, which went public within the US final 12 months, additionally has twin British “superhubs” within the north and south). Hage says the UK is a horny market as a result of its supermarkets have subtle provide chains and want meals firms to slot in easily.
However there may be an alarming aspect to chilly chain focus. The UK imported £32bn of chilled and frozen meals in 2023, practically thrice the quantity that it exported. Border frictions since Brexit imply that it wants larger buffers to make sure the continuity of meals provides. Corby is a part of the UK’s essential infrastructure.
Extra of this infrastructure is turning into overseas owned due to economies of scale. NewCold’s dimension permits it to be vertically built-in: its services run by itself software program and it fabricates its personal metal racks, serving to it to construct quickly. “We observe our clients all around the world,” Hage says.
It’s robust for smaller operators to compete: NewCold is the fourth largest chilly chain firm by international capability, whereas Magnavale ranks 18th. Stephen Lawrence’s son Andrew oversees Magnavale for Sadel, and says the latter is “on this for the long run”. Chilly storage now includes 60 per cent of Sadel’s belongings and it’s planning to broaden into continental Europe.
An trade that superior glacially for many years is choosing up velocity. At Corby, vehicles reverse into bays sealed with air luggage to cease heat coming into as they’re unloaded and stuffed. Pallets destined for supermarkets are pushed out always to depots. The chilly chain has to maintain turning.
