ADB Cool Company (ADB), part of Agro Merchants Group, has officially opened its new facility expansion in Rotterdam.
The project adds 13 loading bays and 6,000 pallet positions, bringing the site to a capacity of 23,198 pallet positions and significantly enhancing the company’s repacking capabilities through a substantial investment in new facilities, equipment and technology.
The facility is strategically located near the Port of Rotterdam, which is the busiest port in Europe with an annual throughput of approximately 465m tonnes. Agro Merchants said the expansion would support its growing customer base and enable it to take on extra customer volume.
The building has been designed to comply with BREEAM (Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method) certification standards, the internationally recognised assessment method to determine sustainability performance of buildings.
ADB’s managing director Alex de Brujin said: “We are thrilled to be starting operations at our newly expanded facilities, as we can now further support the fresh produce sector and meet the increasing demands of our clients for storage, packing, ripening and all the other services we offer.”
ADB Cool Company is a family business founded more than 80 years ago to support cooling and storage of fresh fruit and flowers. Its ample storage capacity has multiple rooms to handle a wide variety of temperatures including deep-frozen. Service offerings include: repacking, quality inspections, ripening, flow packing, grape cutting and others. Quality certifications include IFS Logistics, IFS Food, SKAL and AEO.
“Together with Opticool and ETL, Agro Merchants’ fresh produce network in Rotterdam offers unrivalled end-to-end services for the industry through a strategic combination of port and inland facilities with transportation and forwarding services,” Agro Merchants said.
“With this expansion, we continue to lead the cold chain industry in new facility investments and service enhancements to support fresh perishable food trade.”
Other recently completed projects include facility expansions in Spain at the Port of Algeciras and in Vineland, New Jersey serving the Port of Philadelphia.
“With new greenfield sites in Houston, Texas and Savannah, Georgia planned for 2017, we will continue to meet the growing demand of our global customers,” the company said.
