Bito solutions enable further growth

AVE has seen continuous growth since it was founded. The demand for vegan products has risen sharply, especially in recent years," says Jörg Kerber, Head of Logistics and IT and strategic advisor to the management at AVE, Europe's first vegan wholesaler. "We now offer over 800 items for the trade." The company supplies wholesalers and food retailers, the hotel and catering industry, restaurants, organic food stores and health food stores. There are also more than 2,000 products in the online store

. Consumers can choose from a constantly expanding range of purely plant-based products.

In 2001, Tobias Graf founded the Absolute Vegan Empire, or AVE for short, based on the animal rights group "absolut". He starts in his living room in Schwarzenfeld in the Upper Palatinate. The number of customers increased and he soon moved into his parents' basement and garage. He continuously expands his range and demand continues to grow. In 2007, AVE builds new premises for its wholesale business in nearby Nabburg. A year later, the company took over the online store alles-vegetarisch.de, which had fallen into disuse. "This has since developed into the largest online store for vegan food in Europe," says Kerber. "However, the old site was soon bursting at the seams."

Smooth flow of goods required

Since June 2015, the new company site has been located in the Nabburg industrial park on 7,500 square meters of land, of which the logistics hall takes up around 2,500 square meters. Compared to a pure online supermarket, the warehouse is used both for picking B2B orders and for end customer orders from the online store. "We have to handle large wholesale orders just as safely as small orders," explains Kerber. This poses very special challenges for intralogistics. This multi-channeling requires different types of storage: the more extensive product range from the online store must be provided in smaller packaging units, while the large quantities and fast-moving items for the retail trade must be stored on pallets. The products are stored in two temperature zones. There is a warehouse for the dry range and a thermally separated fresh warehouse for goods that are kept below eight degrees Celsius. To ensure that nothing spoils, the "first-in-first-out" principle is strictly adhered to. The distribution of goods must be monitored precisely in terms of stock levels and remaining shelf life up to the best-before date. Added to this are the different order structures and numbers in the respective channels." AVE receives up to 2,000 parcel orders a day via the online store and up to 150 wholesale orders - these are delivered as parcels, pallets or full loads.

Finding the right solution with the right partner

A partner was needed who was able to implement the existing planning and intralogistics specifications at short notice. Bito-Lagertechnik from Meisenheim was commissioned. The full-service provider supplied a two-storey live storage and retrieval system (SDS) for the dry warehouse. A structural steel platform was integrated as well as a conveyor system to transport the picking containers from the second floor down to the dispatch area. The floor area is 300 square meters, the height of the system is around seven meters. The unit load flow racks are loaded with goods in cartons from one side. These then roll automatically to the front, where the employee removes the required items. This allows order pickers and goods providers to work undisturbed by each other. The implementation of the FiFo principle in this picking system also ensures that the items stored first are also removed first. This means that the best-before date can be adhered to. The dry warehouse also has a double and a single row of pallet racks for items with a high turnover. There is also a row of racks for packaging material. Pallet racks were also installed in the fresh food area. A double row was equipped with unit load flow levels in the lower area, thus ensuring a compact provision of many different articles in smaller quantities. The pallet spaces above the flow levels act as buffers. In addition, a single row of shelves with pallet spaces is used for fast-moving items. AVE can store around 3,000 different items in the complete system.