Alibaba’s Freshippo Opens Automated Grocery Facility in Shanghai
Located in Shanghai, the nearly 1 million square foot center can sort over 2.8 million items per day – a mix of local and globally-sourced grocery goods curated to feed China’s growing appetite for quality foodstuffs.
Freshippo is working to keep its more than 300 stores across 27 Chinese cities well-supplied and has leveraged technology to make it happen.
The center employs automated vehicles, robots and cloud technology.
Alibaba Group Holding’s supermarket chain Freshippo, also known as Hema Fresh, has opened its biggest supply chain center in Shanghai.
The one-million-square-foot hub integrates the processing of agricultural produce, research and development of ready-to-eat foods, cold storage of semi-finished foods, a centralized kitchen, and cold chain logistics distribution, Freshippo said in a press release today.
The center, which took three years to build, will support Freshippo Supermarkets, Freshippo X members-only outlets, and other retail stores in the Chinese cities of Shanghai, Nanjing, Suzhou, Hangzhou, and Hefei. It can sort more than 2.8 million items per day.
The hub boasts automated equipment such as guided vehicles, robotic arms, and cross-belt sorters. AGVs use quick response codes and inertial navigation technologies, allowing them to be deployed on the cloud server during the product sorting process. Based on intelligent algorithms, AGVs can follow the optimal path and work together to transport unpacked goods.
Founded in Shanghai in 2015, Freshippo operates more than 300 stores across 27 Chinese cities and has seven supply chain centers.
It will support over 100 Freshippo stores in eastern China from Shanghai to Hangzhou
The grocery store chain has formed sourcing partnerships with 33 retailers worldwide so far this year and is setting up eight procurements centers outside of China as part of the company’s streamlined supply chain.
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The Shanghai center uses robotic arms, cross-belt sorters and automated guided vehicles (AGV) powered by algorithms to unpack goods efficiently.
The supply chain hub also features a centralized kitchen to prepare ready-to-eat dishes served at Freshippo stores.
“From raw materials to the production of fresh food, and transportation to stores, every step along the supply chain can be traced,” said Tang Lei, director of Freshippo Shanghai Centralized Kitchen, in the same statement.
“This is Freshippo’s first wholly automated park,” said Hao Jingbin, director of the new center. “It also leverages technologies such as fifth-generation network, the internet of things, and blockchain to achieve full automation and digitization of the entire supply chain, which helps to improve supply chain efficiency and reduce operational costs.”
“This is Freshippo’s first wholly automated park, which includes an automated cold chain fresh processing center and a series of logistics automation facilities systems,” said Hao.
“The announcement of the center marks the upgrading of Freshippo’s new retail supply chain. It will be driven by data to promote the full automation of Freshippo’s warehouse operations and management,” said Hao Jingbin, director of Freshippo supply chain center, in a statement.
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