A major new entrant to the Australian cold-store industry, NewCold Melbourne, has partnered with Toyota Material Handling Australia (TMHA) to equip two local state-of-the-art warehouses.
Netherlands-based NewCold Advanced Cold Logistics will open the facilities in August and September, with 45 leased Toyota and BT forklifts.
The decision was based on NewCold's relations with Toyota in Europe, and TMHA's ability to supply and service a full range of warehouse equipment.
The 34-metre high warehouses have a combined 40,800 square metres of floor area, total storage for 213,428 Australian CHEP pallets, 39 loading docks and will operate around the clock.
One will be a cold store at minus 23 degrees C and the other a chilled store with 2, 8 and 11 degrees C environments.
NewCold's Director Oceania, Ray Perry, said the decision to equip with Toyota forklifts reflects the existing positive and valuable relations the company has with Toyota in other countries.
"This makes Toyota our material handling partner of choice, while the comprehensive service offering is unique and cost effective as well," he said.
"We appreciate that Toyota does not only supply the forklift (equipment) but will also service the equipment as and when we need it.
"Toyota has proved to be a trusted material handling equipment agent, providing a wide range of forklifts and battery electric warehouse products which we may require from time to time.
"Being a logistics and warehouse service provider, Toyota shares common customer values with NewCold. We trust that we will benefit from TMHA's wealth of knowledge in the industry in Australia to increase our productivity, while staying ahead of our competition."
TMHA corporate account manager Jason Fennell said local discussions with NewCold began in October 2016 and a decision was made May 2017.
"We received a request to assist NewCold from our corporate division and worked from there," he said.
"NewCold uses a variety of suppliers and products in Europe. However, the core business is to be able to pick orders, replenish stock, load and unload required deliveries, and store required long-life stocks on a 24/7 basis."
Mr Fennell said TMHA's flexibility in equipment supply and customer support was vital in the new partnership with NewCold.
"This is the company's first development in Australia, so we are committed to working with them to develop the relationship and ensure we cover all the material handling requirements, as well as making this process easy for the customer," he said.
NewCold currently has facilities in four countries, UK Wakefield, France, Poland and Germany, with construction sites in the USA and headquarters in Breda, The Netherlands.
The initial equipment roster for NewCold's facilities in Melbourne includes 21 BT electric pallet jacks, 10 Toyota 8-Series FBE18 three-wheel electric forklifts, seven BT RRE140H reach trucks, four Toyota 32-8FG30 internal combustion forklifts, a pair of 32-8FG18 Toyota forklifts, a BT RRE250H reach truck and four battery chargers.
Newcold site & implementation manager Luca Quaresima and site manager MB02 Shaun Micallef with Toyota forklifts at the new Melbourne facility