What equipment is required for a cold storage warehouse?

Cold Storage Warehouse Equipment – You need a well-equipped cold storage warehouse to meet your requirements in an effective manner. As you store frozen meat products, fruits, vegetables, and life-saving vaccines, even mild temperature changes can spoil the complete lot you keep inside the facility. Here is a complete online guide that tells you about what equipment you need for a Warehouse facility. Plus, you also get some inside tips and ideas on how you can manage your warehousing unit in a hassle-free way.

Information about cold storage warehouse equipment

Inline Pallet and space retrievers

Pallet and space retrievers can be abbreviated as PSRs. To quickly transport cold storage products from your facility, these PSRs are considerably helpful. These are automated gravity-fed devices and you can take your products and prep up the loads meant for shipping. 

Moving loads down conveyors can also reduce manpower. This way the productivity of your warehousing facility improves. Plus, when you have automated machines doing the job for you, you don’t have workers picking things up and spreading germs or viruses. In other words, the number of touchpoints of workers picking up germs from disease spreading zones can be minimized. Your goods, therefore, remain hygienic when you allow machines to transport products from the warehousing facility to road trucks or via shipping containers.

Stretch wrappers

Once you remove spacers and pellets, this is what the inline PSR’s do. The products are directly sent to a stretch wrapping facility. What are stretch wrappers? These are tight plastic wraps that keep product bundles tightly packed. You must tightly pack the products in bundles so that the bundles do not rip apart and the products don’t get damaged in transit. A cold storage warehouse can also use stretch wrapping devices to save time and effort over people who use them while packing loads. A stretch packing device also uses lesser film as compared to the conventional packing mode.

Pallet tunnels

Pallet tunnels, also known as pallet straighteners, are the equipment that holds stacks of packed goods away from walls or corners. When packed goods topple over, the wall surfaces of the warehousing unit can get damaged severely. When you place stacked goods over pallet tunnels, you have the tunnels supporting the packaged goods. Forklifts or conveyor belts can unload packaged goods onto the pallet retrievers or tunnels.

While these three products are good for an overall storage facility including cold storage, the following is equipment that a cold storage unit specifically needs:

Freezer spacers

For any frozen food storage facility, temperature changes can spoil an entire lot of goods you place at the facility. Hence, to call your facility the best cold storage warehouse, you must maintain the utmost quality of the products. For this to happen, you must allow an adequate flow of chilled air between the products and the pellets. Freezer spacers are devices that can provide support in this aspect. They let cold air flow more freely. 

Plastic and aluminum spacers are commonly used. Plastic spacers are more convenient as you can quickly clean and sanitize them after each use. Hence, you can use plastic freezers for storing perishable products. The design also includes egg crate models for an added degree of stability.

Automated freezer space insertion units

What do you think is the most labor-intensive task at a cold storage unit? It is placing freezer spacers in between load components. Instead, you can use a fully automated device that can insert freezer spacers. The automated insertion units make use of robotics to do the job for you.

You can do this for up to 30 pallet loads per hour. This way, you can make your unit more productive. Plus, you also provide space insertion automating devices to your employees, thereby making their jobs easier. 

Lift tables

Do you want your packages to stay at warehousing units intact? Using lift tables can ease the job for you by a considerably. Workers needn’t put spacers or pallets to lift the loads from the ground. Instead, lift tables can bring packaged goods to a more comfortable plane. 

You can get stainless steel lift tables that are sturdy, portable, and highly efficient. These tables easily lift product goods at a working plane. These are easier to clean and sanitize too. The cold storage warehouse must maintain frozen foods in a clean and hygienic atmosphere.

Washing stations

To be the best cold storage warehouse, you need to follow the safety and hygiene measures as advocated by the government. You have multiple options to clean, wash, and dry equipment. Here are a few of the options one can typically find at a cold storage unit:

Tray and space washers

You use freezer spaces at every cold storage warehouse. Hence, it is ideally recommended that you have a well-equipped wash station too. You can place a dishwasher inside the same. This way, you can clean freezer spaces from time to time. You can also do the clean-up without damaging the freezing equipment.

Pallet washers

Are you using a freezing unit that is completely refrigerated? Then, you may not need to use freezer spaces. You may opt to use pallets instead. However, you must sanitize them before using them. Pallet washers can clean pallets, spaces, totes, and other containers.

Pallet dryers

Again, if you transfer frozen food products onto wet pallets, these can be a breeding ground for molds or bacteria. The pallet dryers have temperature settings and adjustable air control panels. This way you can dry the pallets hassle-free.

Pressurized washers

Hot or cold-water blasts can help you cleanse the equipment at refrigerated warehouse in a more effective manner. Inhouse washers can do this, the automation reducing worker’s efforts doing the same. 

Conclusion

Here, we have given an end to end guide on the type of Cold Storage Warehouse Equipment that is required at frozen food warehouses, including forklifts, panel towers, and cleaning equipment. Now that you know the uses of each, make sure to choose a cold storage warehouse that is well-equipped for your needs.