Licensing takes as long as pregnancy

On Nov. 27, 2019, the first spade was put into the ground for the construction of NewCold's new automated coldstore in Montauban-de-Bretagne, near Rennes. The Dutch cold-chain logistics service provider's second cold store in France will have a storage capacity of 700,000 m³ and will have ice cream producer Froneri as its main customer. The realization of the project with three high-rise freezer warehouses and a two-story low-rise building in front of them had a lot of difficulties. It took 9 months for the local government to grant the permit, rain was a major spoilsport at the start of the construction work, and since March COVID-19 has also kept this construction site under its spell. By April 1, 2021, the site should be operational.

NewCold, which builds and operates cold-storage warehouses worldwide, is expanding. In doing so, the Dutch cold-chain logistics service provider is opting for larger freezer warehouses for 80,000 to 100,000 pallets, allowing multiple customers to be accommodated in one warehouse. In this way, the products of several customers can be brought to their destination with one truck. After all, supermarket chains want to be supplied daily, so it is more efficient to combine as much as possible. In addition to a first coldstore in Argentan, NewCold is currently building a new automated coldstore on French soil, in Montauban-de Bretagne, together with construction company B-Built.

"First of all, we are building this site with a storage capacity of 700,000 m³ for our client Froneri. In the fall of 2018, we were tasked with looking out for a suitable site and working out a coldstore to centralize products that are now scattered in five locations. We finally chose Rennes, and even though this site is 200 km from Froneri's largest production facilities, it is in the direction of its customers. Moreover, this region offers opportunities for other customers. At the start of the project, we envisioned completion in December 2020 so that the end customer would be ready for the summer season by April 2021," says vice president of business development Piet Meijs. "Our own architects and engineers designed a cold store with 96,000 pallet spaces according to our standard concept and with oxygen reduction as fire prevention, as usual. Four months later, however, that dossier was rejected by the local government because oxygen reduction is not recognized as fire prevention in France. Sprinklers, however, are not an option for us. We submitted a new dossier based on a concept with three smaller high-rise warehouses with 32,000 pallets each. That was finally approved in mid-September 2019. So granting the permits took as long as a pregnancy."

Three high-rise warehouses and one low-rise building

"We started the groundwork and construction work in November 2019, but then heavy rain sprinkled a spanner in the works, so main contractor B-Built had to take extra measures to make everything workable," Meijs said. "Unlike our other coldstores, we did not start from a floor with a shelving system, around which the walls are then placed, but a steel structure forms the basis of the three free-standing high-rise freezer warehouses with a height of 35 meters. Roofs and walls were constructed in insulated sandwich panels. These compact buildings were equipped with a racking system. We are working for the first time with a monorail system to transport pallets from the warehouse to the shipping department and vice versa. The doors between the different locations only open when a pallet passes. In front of these "high bays" is a two-story building, characterized mainly by the large black curtain wall with solar control glazing, which includes order picking, shipping area and loading docks. Next to it is the office, characterized by the black curtain wall with solar control glazing. This is a beautiful construction project, but one that is completely controlled by COVID-19. During the first lockdown, the French subcontractors were off site for six to eight weeks. Strict safety measures followed afterwards, and meanwhile the second wave obviously did not help the progress of the works. Thus, the construction process was delayed for another three months and, together with end customer Froneri, we adjusted the opening to April 1, 2021."   

Construction Info

Client NewCold, Breda

Main contractor B-Built, Bergen op Zoom

Steel Construction ASK Romein, Roosendaal

Roofs, walls, floor insulation Isocab Construct, Ingelmunster (B)/Steenvoorde (FR)