Combination of systems in the Vinaigrerie Générale warehouse in France

Tête Noire brand vinegars

Founded in 1995, Vinaigrerie Générale is a French company that produces and distributes the prestigious Tête Noire vinegar, made from Bordeaux D.O. wines. The company's product range also includes spirit and cider vinegar, mustards, mushrooms, gherkins, vinaigrettes and cleaning vinegars.

The company is based in the French town of Prigonrieux (Dordogne). Recently, it built a new building right next to its warehouse and, to outfit it, the company approached Mecalux. As Delphine Trias, the administrative and financial manager of Vinaigrerie Générale, explains, “we chose to work with Mecalux because of the company's reputation, as well as our excellent relationship with the salespeople, who always stood by us during this project.”

The new warehouse

By expanding the warehouse, the company sought to make the most of the available space to obtain greater capacity, improve product management and accommodate a larger number of items. Between the 50 to 60 different products, half of them are vinegars.

Some of the products it works with are perishable, so one of Vinaigrerie Génerale's priorities was to manage these products according to the FIFO (first in, first out) principle to ensure timely distribution of the products that should be consumed first.

The new warehouse occupies a 1,135 m² area and, taking into account the needs of Vinaigrerie Générale, Mecalux has installed compact racks with the Pallet Shuttle system, pallet racks and push-back racks. All in all, up to 1,047 pallets can be stowed with all the finished products ready for distribution.

The three storage systems improve the distribution of goods according to the corresponding article and demand level. Thus, for example, products that do not need to be managed according to the FIFO principle are deposited on push-back racking. Conversely, those with a lower rotational rate are deposited on standard pallet racks.

Delphine Trias - Administrative and Financial Manager of Vinaigrerie Générale
“We are very satisfied with the new warehouse because the Pallet Shuttle system adds a lot of value to our business. Now we have a large warehousing capacity and have been able to exploit our space, which allows us to stock more SKUs".

Advantages of the Pallet Shuttle system

Six blocks of racks have been installed with the semi-automatic Pallet Shuttle system, occupying the bulk of the warehouse space. The racks are 5 m high, divided into three levels. “The advantage of this system is that it uses our space to provide the pallet storage capacity we needed,” says Delphine Trias.

The racks are geared towards the most widely consumed products, mainly Tête Noire brand vinegars. The Pallet Shuttle system ensures that goods are managed as per the FIFO criterion. Each racking block comprises two aisles, one for loading and one for unloading. The pallets are inserted through one side of the block and removed on the other side. “This design prevents interference between loading and unloading of merchandise,” notes Delphine Trias. Besides the items' rotation, these racks confer a lot of agility to the inflowing and outflowing goods, an essential feature for Vinaigrerie Générale.

The Pallet Shuttle is able to cope with this work rhythm quickly and efficiently, as the automatic shuttle enters the storage channels and positions each pallet in the deepest spot available.

Advantages for Vinaigrerie Générale

• FIFO management: racking with the Pallet Shuttle simplifies the management of goods according to the FIFO principle, a prime consideration for storing Vinaigrerie Générale's perishable products.
• Greater number of SKUs: with the expansion of its warehouse, the company can house a greater number of SKUs and up to 1,047 pallets with all the finished products ready to be shipped.
• Agile entries and exits: the Pallet Shuttle moves the goods within the storage channels swiftly and autonomously.