Cold Storage

Project Details

With Talley’s outgrowing their current storage options, Apollo Projects was engaged to lead the design and construction of their new automated storage retrieval system (ASRS) cold store in Ashburton, the first deep lane ASRS cold store in the Southern Hemisphere.

The existing facility remained fully operational during construction, which required strategic programming and planning to avoid disruption to Talleys’ ongoing operations.

The -24°C, 3,500m² cold store operates as a fully automatic, lightsout (unmanned) freezer for pallets of frozen goods with a highly specialised fire system. The specialised racking system transfers products using automated conveyors, allowing for greater storage heights than a manual system and making this one of the tallest cold stores in New Zealand. With full automation, the racking system also eliminates the risk of damage to products, racks and trucks and reduces potential injuries as no operators or forklifts are required to work in the freezer.

With the ASRS being new to New Zealand, Apollo also needed to develop the process flow, service design and connections to the existing facility from scratch and with constant communication with the racking suppliers.

The freezer is clad with Kingspan insulated panels, and to maintain the -24°C operating temperature, there is a force draft refrigeration system operating through an exterior ambient defrost pod. This technology removes unnecessary plant from the freezer space and eliminates the defrost heat load from the cold store, making the facility even more energy efficient.

The scope of works also included the development of associated control rooms, robot access tunnels, refrigeration, sprinkler systems and modifying existing electrical infrastructure.