Edeka Freienbrink delivers fresh food faster with automation
Edeka Freienbrink is delivering fresh produce quickly and efficiently to its 488 stores around Berlin and Brandenburg, within as little as 4-5 hours of receiving the order. This required overcoming picking errors, delays, physically demanding tasks, and ensuring that the produce reached the stores on time while maintaining its quality and safety.
Edeka’s Freienbrink distribution center – part of Edeka Group, the largest German supermarket chain – needs to distribute fresh produce quickly and efficiently to its 488 stores around Berlin and Brandenburg.
Freienbrink’s distribution center belongs to EDEKA Minden-Hannover, which is the regional company of EDEKA Minden eG with a turnover of 9.79 billion euros and around 73,800 employees.
The challenge
Getting fresh produce delivered as quickly as possible from field to store is of utmost importance to maintain its quality and safety.
Fresh produce has a limited shelf life, and any delay in the delivery process can result in spoilage or loss of nutritional value.
Edeka Freienbrink needed to find a solution to overcome challenges such as picking errors, delays and physically demanding tasks, while also ensuring that the produce reached the stores on time.
The goal
The distribution center’s goal is to deliver fresh produce to stores as fast as possible, within as little as 4-5 hours of receiving the order.
Edeka turned to the automation expertise of Cimcorp Group to modernize five of its distribution centers, including Freienbrink, and raise productivity.
The system has to run – we are very time-bound and any delay in the process could mean that we could not supply our customers with the quantity that they would like to have, and that cannot happen.
Edeka Freienbrink partnered with Cimcorp Group to automate its fresh produce intralogistics. Cimcorp specializes in automated material handling solutions for the distribution of fresh food.
Edeka Freienbrink is just one of many distribution centers worldwide that Cimcorp has modernized with its unique automated solutions.
Cimcorp’s system efficiently handles the heavy lifting, order picking and distribution of fresh produce, minimizing errors and ensuring timely deliveries.
Cimcorp’s automation expertise has helped Edeka Freienbrink to deliver fresh produce quickly and efficiently without picking errors or delays.
By automating monotonous, repetitive and physically demanding tasks, Edeka has been able to rely on fewer people at its Freienbrink facility. Automation has also resulted in a safer, healthier and more comfortable work environment for the retailer’s employees.
Cimcorp’s system has enabled Edeka to handle a large number and range of SKUs quickly and efficiently.
The automated solution comprises three fresh food modules equipped with Cimcorp’s overhead gantry robots. “The modularity guarantees the maximum functionality of the system through redundancy,” says Jarno Honkanen, Director of Solution Management at Cimcorp.
Rene Klaus, Operations Manager at Edeka Minden-Hannover
We have a vast quantity and range of products that we need to handle as fast as possible. The Cimcorp system is extremely helpful in moving, distributing and locating them. Automation is definitely the future.
THE EDEKA GROUP is the largest German supermarket corporation as of 2017, holding a market share of 20.3%.
Founded in 1907, it consists today of several co-operatives of independent supermarkets all operating under the umbrella organization Edeka Zentrale AG & Co KG, with headquarters in Hamburg.
There are approximately 4,100 stores with the Edeka nameplate that range from small corner stores to hypermarkets.
