What's more, technological developments in the store business are increasingly being supplemented by the fast-growing online food trade. "Ordered today, delivered today" - companies in the e-grocery sector have to live up to this high standard.

Food can spoil and requires consistent tracking of expiry dates and batch numbers. Seasonal or sometimes weekly recurring peaks place high demands on the flexibility of the warehouse layout. The products are fragile and optimized for an appealing presentation in the store - gentle handling is therefore a must. A successful intralogistics solution must take these fundamental points into account. And it also faces the challenge of omnichannel strategies.

Will the chain store business soon be replaced by online retail?
The expansion of online retailing results in a wide range of requirements for the respective distribution network and therefore for the internal material flow. These have an impact on quantities, load carriers and delivery options, among other things. The market is shared by long-established supermarket chains and young start-ups, so-called online supermarkets, and online giants are also entering the food retail sector. As different as the business models are, the additional market trends in online food retail are similar: Fulfillment is struggling with high growth, strong delivery peaks, tightly defined delivery windows, a growing range of products, especially in the fresh range, low drop rates on the last mile and increased pressure on margins as well as the processing of e-commerce orders in the dark store.

It's all a question of the right level of automation
The right level of automation in warehouse operations is defined by customer-specific requirements. Whether with manual, partially or fully automated solutions for storage, picking and transportation - SSI Schaefer coordinates and consolidates the flow of goods across all temperature zones and enables an optimum service level. A holistic optimization of the process chain with an individual degree of automation is essential for long-term success in a highly dynamic market environment - over the entire life cycle. Because a logistics center is never "finished", it is constantly on the move.

Modular solutions for customized systems
To meet specific challenges, a high degree of flexibility and individuality is required. The answer for food retailers? Modular and expandable intralogistics modules. This makes it possible to react particularly quickly and efficiently to growth or newly adapted business models - even at individual stages of the process chain. SSI Schaefer offers a wide range of solution modules perfectly tailored to the respective logistics center: The portfolio includes storage systems for the fully automated storage of large and small load carriers in a wide range of temperature zones as well as conveyor technology and automated guided vehicles, such as the WEASEL from SSI Schaefer, which can be used individually, for internal transportation between the individual storage areas.

The strong delivery peaks characteristic of e-grocery and the need to consolidate a wide variety of items with different temperature-related requirements result in an increased need for consolidation. For this reason, significant efficiency benefits can be achieved in order picking when processing e-commerce orders by using high-performance consolidation buffers. Picking that is detached from the delivery sequence enables picking algorithms to be optimized and the workload in picking to be smoothed. The SSI Flexi Shuttle in its 3D-MATRIX Solution version is particularly suitable as a consolidation buffer for e-grocery.

Complex processes perfectly under control with IT
Modern logistics is no longer conceivable without software-based process optimization and visualization. Our own logistics software WAMAS combines all intralogistics components into an intelligent system with serial number and batch tracking, expiry date control and cold chain protection. It has standard interfaces to external systems and can therefore be easily and seamlessly integrated into the user's existing IT landscape.