A smart cold-chain hub for Hongfa's prepared-food business

On July 23, at the commissioning ceremony for Hongfa Group's 50,000-tonne prepared food project, Hongfa Group and ATOMIX jointly announced that construction of the intelligent dense storage warehouse at the project's cold chain logistics center is in full swing. The intelligent dense storage project adopts ATOMIX's intelligent dense storage solution built around the Pallet Shuttle (four-way pallet shuttle), which can operate in the harsh environment of a -18°C freezer warehouse and supports a daily turnover of several thousand pallets. Once completed, it is expected to become a benchmark project for the prepared food industry. Zhang Mingjun, Party Secretary and Chairman of Hongfa Group, Zhang Tairan, President of Hongfa Group, Zhao Jianguo, General Manager of the Cooked Food Company, the head of ATOMIX, and representatives of more than 20 partner companies attended the ceremony and jointly witnessed the event.

Event photo

After more than 20 years of development, Hongfa Group has become a national key leading enterprise in agricultural industrialization, a national poverty alleviation leading enterprise, and one of China's top ten white-feathered broiler enterprises. In his speech, Hongfa Group President Zhang Tairan said: “The commissioning and operation of the 50,000-tonne prepared food project marks Hongfa's brand entering a stage of higher-quality development, and is also an important milestone in Hongfa's deep cultivation of the market and strategic layout.”

According to reports, Hongfa Group's 50,000-tonne prepared food project involves a total investment of RMB 400 million and covers an area of 75 mu. The completion of the project will greatly increase the added value of broiler products, extending and expanding Hongfa's broiler industry chain. Once the project reaches full production, it can achieve annual sales revenue of RMB 1 billion.

As the provider of the intelligent dense storage solution for the project's cold chain logistics center, ATOMIX designed and planned a flexible intelligent dense storage solution with 6,450 storage locations based on the Pallet Shuttle for the Hongfa 50,000-tonne prepared food project. The solution includes 10 cold-store Pallet Shuttle units, 4 lifts, and 1 Matrix8 system. After the dense storage solution is officially launched, it will replace manual labor in the harsh operating environment of the -18°C freezer warehouse and support a daily turnover of several thousand pallets, increasing storage slot utilization by 60%. In addition, by connecting the information and data flows of production and warehousing through the Matrix8 system, strict expiry-date and batch management can be further achieved, making food safety controllable.

The head of ATOMIX said: “ATOMIX is committed to combining AI, robotics, and automated logistics systems to help industrial enterprises complete the digital and intelligent upgrade of their warehousing and logistics. For the prepared food industry, the ability to guarantee food safety and the overall responsiveness and efficiency of the supply chain are important guarantees for enterprise development. We are glad to cooperate with a leading enterprise like Hongfa, and we look forward to working closely together in the future to make this project a benchmark project for the prepared food industry.”

Recently, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) clearly stated in the Measures for Restoring and Expanding Consumption that it is necessary to cultivate the model of “breeding and planting bases + central kitchens + cold chain logistics + restaurant outlets,” tap the potential of the prepared food market, accelerate the construction of prepared food bases, fully embody the principles of safety, nutrition, and health, and improve catering quality and the standardization of distribution. We are willing to take this project as an opportunity to continue leveraging our native technological advantages in AI + robotics, and to join hands with more prepared food enterprises to jointly improve supply chain management capabilities and efficiency, providing “cold-chain freshness protection” for the industry's development.