MILAN – 9 January 2024 — Warehouse automation and software specialist Dematic has recently signed a contract with Globalpesca – a leading Italian provider of frozen foods and food services to the hotel, restaurant, and catering industries – to ensure operational efficiencies at a new low-temperature warehouse for frozen goods.

“Important factors in our decision process included knowing that Dematic has many years of experience developing automation solutions for the hospitality and catering industry and it has deep experience in the storage of food items at low temperatures,” explains Andrea Ruffoni, the supply chain director at Globalpesca, adding, “And when it comes to stacker cranes for pallets, we were confident that Dematic was the right company to partner with.”

Headquartered northwest of Milan in Gravellona Toce, Italy’s Piedmont region, Globalpesca S.p.A. is a family-owned business whose roots date back nearly 125 years.

Due to rapid growth in the hospitality and catering industry in Italy, food service companies must be able to manage higher order volumes and be prepared to continuously improve service levels. Globalpesca recognised that automation would support its operations by bringing improvements in two key areas: better planning and managing of its inbound product process and better handling in storage and restocking of its picking areas.

The Dematic solution is going to be installed in a new warehouse facility adjacent to Globalpesca's distribution centre in Gravellona Toce. The solution calls for a self-supporting structure designed to meet the load and temperature requirements of the warehouse, the second temperature-controlled warehouse adjacent to the distribution centre. 

The 24-metre high new warehouse covers approximately 1,400 square metres. The Dematic solution includes two RapidStore^® UL1200 stacker cranes with an option of an additional one for future expansion plans, a pallet transport system using BK25 conveyors, and two Ergopal picking workstations with an option for a third workstation. Installation and commissioning are scheduled to be completed by early 2026.

The Italian frozen foods specialist aims to automate its operations and improve the efficiency of its processes with more precise inventory tracking and improving ergonomics for its operators by no longer needing them to access the facility’s −25°C areas and having them work at better designed workstations for preparing pallets.

During the project’s conception phase, an Italian team from Dematic together with a customer project team led by Ruffoni, worked closely to review various possible scenarios for Globalpesca to determine the best fit with future scalability as one of the priorities.

According to Mauro Corona, the sales director for Dematic Italy, the project is a great example of a strong collaboration. “The extensive automation expertise of Dematic and Globalpesca’s deep experience in their industries came together in a strong cooperative partnering for an efficient solution that will provide a strategic lever for Globalpesca in a demanding business environment.”