There is a nip in the air at Grolleman Coldstores

  • Lighting only in active street

    Wheeled lighting, only where it is needed.

    The street with LED ligting moves along with the scaffolds that are activated. The rest of the store remains in the dark.

A first thought after entering the coldstore at Grolleman in Apeldoorn is: This cold is not too bad, but only after one minute toes and fingers are starting to prickle and lose colour. In the storage area temperature is at a constant -25º Celsius, which in Western European open air does not occur anymore. However, for the Grolleman employees this is daily routine, as the company has specialized in the packing, freezing and storing of products from especially the (luxury) food industry.

With the cooling system's residual warmth the office and the cleaning water are heated.

Peter Kieftenbelt, head of maintenance, receives us in the board room and talkes lively about the history of the company. Grolleman Coldstores is a family business that was started in the 70's in Olst, a community north of Deventer. First a transportation company it steadily developed through the freezing branch. In the meantime the company has two settlements, in Apeldoorn and in Olst, with in total 160 employees.

Peter Kieftenbelt: “We are a complete service provider for organizations that want to have their products packed, labeled, cooled, freezed and stored. Especially meat producing and processing companies, such as slaughterhouses, know how to find us before exporting their products (approx. 80%). In Apeldoorn the coldstore has a storage capacity of approx. 22.000 pallet locations. The cold-storage tunnel can manage approximately 400 tons per 24 hours.”

Focussed on energy efficiency in 2003 the company in Apeldoorn moved to a magnificent location at the sustainable business park De Ecofactorij. All companies that are located there, make extra efforts in the field of sustainability, just like Grolleman. In view of the nature of the activities the company is focussed on using energy as efficiently as possible. As a consequence the company building was certified on the ‘Very good’ level in accordance with the sustainability certificate BREEMAN-NL. For example by means of the cooling system's residual warmth the offices and the cleaning water is heated.

Moveable lighting

In the coldstore the products are stored in countless racks several metres high, which can be moved mechanically. These are driven by SEW-EURODRIVE electric motors. Until last year the whole coldstore was still lighted continuously during working hours.

An energy-friendlier solution had to be found, for example by means of LED-lights, and therefore in April 2015 the moveable lighting was modified. A moveable street was installed with lighting that moves along with the racks that are activated. It remains dark in the other parts of the coldstore. The light street's drive was selected and installed in close consultation with SEW-EURODRIVE. It consists of six geared motors SEW-EURODRIVE, type W30DR63L4, which are controlled via six SEW-EURODRIVE MOVITRAC® -frequency inverters that are connected in a Profinet network.

Peter Kieftenbelt: “We deliberately opted for SEW-EURODRIVE because of the encoders that can communicate through Profinet and because of the fact that the motors and inverters continue to operate smoothly in an ambient temperature to minus 40 degrees Celsius. We also appreciated the assistance during the putting into operation.”

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