BNFW Cold Storage

Sea-Invest NEW ULTRAMODERN FRUIT TERMINAL

Belgian New Fruit Wharf (BNFW) offers its customers a new, hyper-modern terminal of 24,000 m².
Belgian New Fruit Wharf (BNFW), a subsidiary of Sea-Invest, began construction of a new terminal in the Albert dock in March 2008. The old warehouses were demolished to make way for a refrigerated, automated fruit terminal of 22,000 m² and a dry storage facility of 2,000 m². The first ship moored here in February this year.

The new terminal in the Albert dock has a storage capacity of 9,600 automatic and 1,800 manual pallets, stacked eight high and two deep. Unloading the ships and bringing the pallets to the warehouse remains unchanged and is still done entirely manually. The automation, under the control of specialists, begins when the pallets arrive inside the warehouse, which is an unlit "black box." A computer-operated crane brings up to 600 pallets per hour inside, places them in position and comes back out with the pallets that have to be loaded onto trucks.

The BNFW refrigerated system guarantees perfect temperature and climate control at all points within the warehouse, where added value operations such as labelling, repackaging and quality control are carried out. Dummy pallets with sensitive measuring instruments record the climate conditions at various points within the warehouse, enabling the technicians to monitor and fine-tune them.

The company uses 100% "green electricity" from hydroelectric power stations in France, which means zero CO2 emissions. In the meantime it is investing in insulation of the warehouses and other measures to reduce energy consumption.

The official opening was held on 15 September 2010.