The intricate skills needed for cold storage solutions

“When it comes to anything to do with temperature control, the smaller details matter a lot more when you construct the building,” says Tony. “It becomes even more complicated when there are different temperature zones, which each have their own specific technical requirements.

“For example, a freezer room obviously has a temperature of 0 to -30, while a chiller room is usually between 2 and 6°C – so different considerations are needed for both.

“If you were to build a 5,000 square metre warehouse, you'd probably put one site manager on it,” says Tony. “But if you were to build a 5,000 square metre temperature-controlled facility or distribution centre, you'd probably require additional management staff – simply because if there was just one, they would get burnt out doing it.”

He says that these kinds of facilities are often seen as ‘warehouses within warehouses’.

“Having a heavier staff presence is one of our fundamental approaches to building these facilities,” says Tony. “It’s not just a warehouse – it’s a warehouse with a secondary building inside it, and then it’s got an office, drystore, loading docks and more – and these all need to flow with the different temperature zones.”

This was definitely the case when it came to the construction of the large-format temperature-controlled distribution centre for Bidfood, one of the country’s largest foodservice wholesalers and distributors. Located in Hobsonville, completed in August 2019 and valued at $20+ million, needless to say it was important to get it right.

“Hobsonville was actually one of several projects we’ve delivered for Bidfood, so by that point we refined a number of the important techniques and quirks,” Tony says. “It’s small things like making sure high-use doors are fit for purpose. So it meant we wanted to make Hobsonville our best cold store, and I think we did that.”

He says a significant cut and removal of existing materials was required across the entire site, so the Q Construction team focused on achieving an efficient construction programme in consultation with the project’s architect and engineers. Due to comprehensive planning and valuable experience from Bidfood projects past, site activities worked well with each other.

The final product boasts a 1540 square metre coldstore, a 440 square metre chiller, a 1600 square metre dry store and more than 900 square metres of environmental load areas.

“Bidfood’s Auckland North Distribution Centre expanded the company’s capacity to deliver timely orders, especially to those customers north of the Waitematā Harbour. Up to 12 trucks at a time can be serviced at environmental load areas, and the centre provides a large dry store as well as temperature-controlled storage for more than 4300 pallets of product.

“Special-purpose facilities include a plant room, forklift recharge room and a large drive-through canopy,” says Tony. 

It’s this expertise that is of most value to clients, Tony says. “It’s always a collaboration between us and the clients to make sure that the client has the best result. Clients are often very educated in how they operate their building – but we have the know-how to construct the building to ensure that it has the longevity that they're after.

“So it’s all about this delicate balance and ensuring the collaboration is seamless.”

Learn more about Q Construction and its cold storage solutions.