SupplyChainTalk: Faster decisions for a more resilient frozen food supply chain 

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The increasingly widespread use of automation in cold storage facilities continues to transform logistics services for frozen food businesses and their customers in Europe. Cold store automation systems often comprise a network of conveyors, mobile racking, Automated Storage and Retrieval Systems (ASRS), robotics, shuttles, temperature monitoring sensors and advanced Warehouse Management Software. Automated systems streamline cold storage operations, minimize temperature fluctuations, reduce the need for lighting and make efficient use of the cold store’s space which saves substantial energy consumption per pallet.

 

For Europe’s frozen food industry and for the region’s consumers, the application of the latest automation systems in cold storage facilities is helping to keep costs low, to improve food supply chain resilience by increasing storage capacity and to reduce the environmental impact of the frozen food supply chain. To make frozen food storage more sustainable, the heat that these facilities let off must be captured and utilised. Waste heat can be used for pasteurisation or sold to other facilities.  

New trends  

 

On a volatile market, three year plans are no longer viable. It’s a better approach to keep the operation flexible and resilient, which enables adjustment to new circumstances. The winning strategy is to accelerate data analysis and decisions and keeping on replanning and evolving to adapt to a changing market, leveraging AI. Under current conditions, logistics companies would do well to form partnerships with their customers and suppliers and involve them in solving supply chain disruptions. In the frozen food industry, businesses are already starting to see returns on their AI investments. Demand planning is the area evolving at the fastest pace with a considerable impact on the entire value chain.   

 

However, to be successful, it’s key that an organisation automates streamlined workflows and not inefficient ones, while he focus in automation should be on improving analysis to make better decisions.

 

Meanwhile, automation mustn’t focus on technology exclusively but also on how a particular technology can enable faster decisions. Investments to improve resilience tend to have priority in times of crises but are harder to justify when it’s business as usual. Generally speaking, family businesses have more appetite for investing in projects with slow RoI than profit-oriented listed companies. Having successfully navigated a new crisis, companies grow increasingly resilient. However, the challenge for supply chain professionals to reconcile the fact that multi-year planning no longer works with the strategic project of building resilience remains . Organisations must rely on their partners’ network to pull off this balancing act.  

  

 

The panel’s advice 

• To improve decision making without a major transformation project, you should start with understanding how your business model operates and build scenario planning capabilities on top of that.  
• Structural partnerships are becoming the new normal in frozen food supply chains.