Food & Beverage: Hygienic, Traceable, High-Throughput Automation for the Cold Chain and Beyond

The food and beverage industry operates under a unique and unforgiving set of constraints. Product freshness is measured in hours, not days. Regulatory scrutiny is relentless. Temperature excursions of even ±1°C can compromise an entire batch. Seasonal demand spikes strain both storage capacity and workforce. And beneath all of this lies an immutable truth: the safety and integrity of the product must never, ever be compromised.

At KINGSHELVING, we do not approach food logistics as a generic warehousing problem. We approach it as a food safety problem, a freshness problem, and a compliance problem—that happens to be solved by intelligent automation. Our solutions are not adapted to food; they are engineered specifically for it, from the grade of stainless steel in our racking to the thermal dynamics of our airlock interfaces.

What defines our food & beverage expertise?

Hygienic Design from the Ground Up
In food facilities, contamination is not a risk; it is an adversary. Our systems are engineered to deny it entry at every point of contact. We specify food-grade stainless steel (304/316) for all surfaces exposed to product or washdown environments, with smooth, non-porous finishes that eliminate bacterial harborage. Welds are ground flush; corners are radiused; crevices are designed out of existence . Our racking systems incorporate sealed base plates, sloped surfaces for fluid drainage, and full compliance with EHEDG (European Hygienic Engineering & Design Group) guidelines where required. For wet processes, we provide IP69K-rated control enclosures and washdown-capable conveyor systems that withstand high-pressure, high-temperature sanitation cycles .

Multi-Temperature Zone Mastery
A single food distribution center rarely operates at a single temperature. Dairy demands +4°C. Ice cream requires -25°C or colder. Meat and seafood live at -18°C. Fresh produce breathes at +2°C to +8°C. Dry goods sit comfortably at ambient. Our ASRS solutions are designed to manage this thermal diversity within a single, seamlessly integrated facility . We engineer physical and dynamic thermal barriers between zones, including automated high-speed doors, pressure-balanced airlocks, and intelligent conveyor handovers that minimize cold air loss. Within each zone, we deploy temperature-rated components—from lubricants and seals to sensors and servo drives—that maintain absolute reliability across decades of -30°C operation .

Energy-Efficient Cold Chain Preservation
A manual cold store loses vast amounts of energy every time a door opens and warm, moist air rushes in. Our automated systems reduce door cycles by 70-80% compared to forklift operations, slashing refrigeration load and defrost frequency. We further optimize energy consumption through intelligent duty-cycling of equipment during low-activity periods, regenerative drive systems that recover energy from descending crane loads, and thermal storage strategies that shift cooling loads to off-peak tariff windows. The result is not merely compliance with cold chain protocols, but a measurable reduction in kilowatt-hours per pallet stored .

Precision Batch & Best-Before-Date (BBD) Traceability
In food and beverage, inventory is not a commodity; it is a perishable asset with a ticking clock. Our WMS executes perfect FIFO (First-In, First-Out) and FEFO (First-Expired, First-Out) discipline down to the individual batch, lot, or even single case . Every inbound load is registered with its full pedigree: production date, expiry date, supplier, COA status, and temperature history. The system dynamically allocates storage based on remaining shelf life, automatically quarantines near-expiry inventory for priority dispatch, and blocks release of expired product at the control level—not just in software, but through physical interlock logic. This is not traceability as an afterthought; it is traceability as a fundamental system architecture .

High-Throughput Handling of Heavy & Diverse Load Formats
Beverage logistics is a sport of weight and velocity. Full pallets of bottled water, canned soft drinks, or glass-packed sauces routinely exceed one ton. Our heavy-duty stacker cranes and pallet shuttles are engineered to handle these loads at cycle speeds that keep pace with modern bottling lines—delivering throughput rates of 40+ pallets per hour per aisle, with positioning accuracy measured in millimeters . For mixed-case palletizing and depalletizing, we integrate vision-guided robotic systems that recognize thousands of SKU variants and build stable, shippable mixed loads directly from ASRS buffer storage .

Gentle Handling for Sensitive Products
Not all food moves on pallets. Bakery items, fresh produce, and fragile packaged goods demand a lighter touch. Our miniload ASRS and box-handling shuttles feature speed-controlled extraction mechanisms, soft-start/stop conveyor profiles, and custom fork geometries that cradle rather than impact. We engineer accumulation buffers that eliminate product-to-product contact, and our WMS sequences picks to minimize transfer distances and impact events. The goal is not just to move product, but to move it without knowing it was moved .

Seamless Integration with Production & Packaging
The line between food manufacturing and food warehousing is increasingly blurred. Our ASRS solutions are designed as direct extensions of your production ecosystem, not standalone repositories. We synchronize inbound palletizing with packaging line output in real time, buffering finished goods while maintaining strict lot segregation. We feed raw materials and packaging supplies to production lines on a just-in-time basis, orchestrated directly from the WMS. And we provide full visibility from farm or receiving dock to despatch bay, creating a continuous, unbroken chain of custody that satisfies both regulatory auditors and your most demanding retail customers .

Proven in the World’s Most Demanding Food Environments

We have delivered food and beverage ASRS solutions across every major category:

• Dairy & Ice Cream: -25°C to +4°C multi-temperature facilities with ultra-high-rate pallet cranes and RFID-traceable pallet tracking .

• Beverage: High-bay, high-throughput warehouses servicing regional distribution networks, handling glass, aluminum, PET, and aseptic packaging formats .

• Frozen & Chilled Foods: Deep-freeze shuttle systems and automated layer picking for mixed-SKU pallet building, minimizing human exposure to hazardous low-temperature environments .

• Ambient & Dry Goods: High-density pallet flow and case-handling systems for shelf-stable products, optimized for e-commerce and omni-channel fulfillment.

• Protein & Seafood: Hygienic, fast-cycle cold storage with full washdown capability and strict segregation protocols for allergen control.

• Confectionery & Bakery: Climate-controlled storage with precise humidity management and ultra-gentle handling for delicate, crushable products .

From Your Production Line to Their Table—Protected by KINGSHELVING

The food on your customer’s table traveled through someone’s warehouse. It may have been our system that kept it at precisely the right temperature, that ensured it was the freshest batch, that tracked its journey from field to fork, that delivered it without a dent, a thaw, or a delay.

We do not take that responsibility lightly.

KINGSHELVING engineers food and beverage automation with the same discipline, rigor, and uncompromising quality that you apply to your own products. We understand that our system’s performance is, in the eyes of your consumer, indistinguishable from your brand’s promise. And we deliver accordingly—not just equipment, but the certainty that every pallet, every case, and every package that passes through our care arrives exactly as intended.

Your product, your reputation, our precision.