Freshippo applies digitisation on new supply chain centre in Shanghai

Freshippo, Alibaba Group's digital intelligence-powered new retail company, has incorporated full automation and digitisation into its retail supply chain with the launch of a new supply chain operations centre in Shanghai.

Spanning a total area of nearly one million square feet, the new supply chain centre integrates the processing of agricultural products, research and development into ready-to-eat food, the cold storage of semi-finished food, a centralised kitchen, and cold chain logistics distribution. As the fresh supply hub for Freshippo in Shanghai, the centre covers the whole east China region, including areas such as Nanjing, Suzhou, Hangzhou and Hefei.  
 
The centre leverages automated equipment such as automated guided vehicles (AGV), robotic arms and cross-belt sorters. AGVs use QR code and inertial navigation technologies, which allow them to be deployed on the cloud server during the product sorting process. According to the release, the vehicles can follow the optimal path and work together to transport unpacked goods and the centre can sort more than 2.8 million items per day. 

As Freshippo's first wholly automated park, the centre also leverages technologies such as 5G, the Internet of Things and blockchain to achieve full automation and digitisation of the entire supply chain, which helps to improve supply chain efficiency and reduce operational costs.

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The announcement of the centre marks the upgrading of Freshippo's new retail supply chain, said Hao Jingbin, director of Freshippo supply chain centre. "It will be driven by data to promote the full automation of Freshippo's warehouse operations and management. At the same time, it will use Freshippo's special central kitchens to greatly improve the efficiency of our supply chain, and will reduce operating costs and fully process various agricultural products to add business value", explained Hao.  

Tang Lei, director of Freshippo Shanghai Centralised Kitchen, said, "Another major feature of the supply chain center is its centralised kitchen, where fresh ingredients are processed into prepared dishes, complementing the full supply chain process of Freshippo's private brand prepared dishes products from research and development to production and transportation."

"From raw materials to the production of fresh food, and transportation to stores, every step along the supply chain can be traced. This not only ensures high standards of food safety, but also greatly improves the iteration speed and promotion efficiency of self-developed food, to help Freshippo vigorously develop prepared dishes, so that consumers can quickly enjoy delicious fresh food of Freshippo's own brand in the busy urban life," he added.
 
Most recently, Freshippo has launched 12 new stores on the same day in eight cities across China, including Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou as the retailer prepares for an initial public offering (IPO). This comes as the company believes that the recovery of China’s consumer market contributes to the rapid rise of young customers, particularly those from new first-tier cities. 

MARKETING-INTERACTIVE has reached out to Freshippo for more information. 

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