REMA 1000 is one of Denmark's largest and fastest growing discount food retailers and has achieved remarkable growth in recent years. Around 340 of the REMA 1000 stores are currently supplied by the subsidiary Reitan Distribution A/S. Now the logistics and supply chain expert has commissioned Dematic to design a high-performance automated warehouse solution to achieve higher delivery frequency and a better service level for the stores, while supporting Reitan's growth strategy for the coming years.

Reitan's current logistics center in Marsalle is around 57,000 square meters in size. In recent years, the company has grown so much that the expansion in the form of new and more modern warehouse facilities became necessary. The expanded warehouse offers an additional 30,000 square meters and includes a high-bay pallet warehouse. At 26 meters at its highest point, it is the largest commercial facility to be built in Horsens for many years.

The directly adjacent new installation is to be connected to the existing warehouse via a bridge and is specially designed for the Dematic automation solution. It will be in operation 21 hours a day, six days a week and process over 400 dry goods orders every day. Around 130,000 cartons are to be picked, packed and distributed daily by the new system, with robotic systems taking over a significant proportion of the tasks. Warehouse automation is expected to increase the frequency of delivery of the 600 most popular products to REMA 1000 grocery store franchisees and reduce overall costs through more efficient operations.

Ole Thomsen, Logistics Director at REMA 1000, explains: "This project is about providing a better service to dealers, optimizing the customer experience and creating ideal working conditions for employees to achieve greater efficiency. From the beginning of the process, Dematic showed great understanding of all our necessary requirements. It is a company that combines innovation with quality and reliability and has a long track record of global success. We were therefore convinced that it was the right partner for REMA 1000."

Thorsten Beck Hansen, Director of Sales Nordics at Dematic, comments on the partnership: "REMA 1000 has achieved ever greater success in recent years. Like all food retail companies, REMA 1000 must now invest to stay ahead. We are committed to ensuring that our state-of-the-art automated warehouse provides the scalability and flexibility the company needs to achieve even greater growth over the next decade."

Once completed, the new system will include an automated pallet warehouse, automated carton depalletizing, intermediate storage, a picking system and semi- and fully automated palletizing technology. Dematic intends to deliver all of this as part of a new multi-site warehouse management system (WMS). This will not only handle the complex order processing with the new automation solutions, but will also coordinate the warehouse movements between the old and new systems and the delivery of all order pallets to a new shipping area. It is expected that this will more than double the productivity of Reitan's warehouse and at the same time significantly improve the working conditions of the warehouse workers.

Andy Blandford, Senior Vice President and Managing Director of Dematic for Northern Europe, concludes: "This collaboration marks the beginning of a long-term business relationship. We look forward to working closely with the REMA-1000 team to help them realize their full potential in an ever-evolving food industry." The new storage facility is scheduled to be operational in early 2023.