23,000 pallet positions at -24°C: Ultracongelados Azarbe's new clad-rack warehouse bears our signature

• We are building a clad-rack structure in Santomera (Murcia), measuring 35 metres to the underside of the roof trusses and up to 38 metres including the trusses. Covering an area of 4,640 m², the racking itself will support the building's roof and wall cladding.
• The new warehouse, designed to operate at -24°C, will provide 23,010 Euro pallet positions and is being built without interrupting the plant's operations.

In Santomera (Murcia), we are building a new clad-rack warehouse for Ultracongelados Azarbe, S.A., a company specialising in the freezing, packaging and distribution of frozen fruit and vegetables. The project responds to the company's significant growth, and we are responsible for the entire structural process: engineering design, manufacturing and installation, all while the plant remains operational throughout construction.

This large-scale clad-rack warehouse, which will reach a height of 35 metres to the underside of the roof trusses and up to 38 metres including the trusses, across an area of 4,640 m², joins the many facilities we have designed, manufactured and installed as specialists in highly complex structures of this kind. Our extensive experience is proving essential in delivering a project of this scale and complexity.

Our engineering team has developed a tailored solution that combines storage capacity, structural stability and adaptability to particularly demanding environmental conditions: the warehouse will operate at -24°C. To meet these requirements, the structure incorporates 100% galvanised steel profiles, designed to perform reliably in conditions involving moisture, corrosion and freezing temperatures.

Once completed, the warehouse will accommodate 23,010 Euro pallets or, alternatively, 19,175 industrial pallets. The structure will support Euro pallets measuring 800 × 1,200 mm with loads of up to 1,250 kg, and industrial pallets measuring 1,000 × 1,200 mm with loads of up to 1,500 kg. The plant already has semi-automated cold storage chambers with a capacity of approximately 18,000 pallets, so the new infrastructure will represent a significant step forward in its growth strategy.

Inside the warehouse, the structure will operate with the Multi-depth clad-rack warehouse system, which will store pallet loads one behind another in deep storage lanes using automated robotic movement. This high-density configuration, particularly suitable for managing large production batches, will reduce the space required for aisles and, in a frozen storage environment, decrease the volume of air that needs to be maintained at low temperatures, helping to optimise energy consumption.

In addition to the technical complexity, another key challenge is constructing the new warehouse alongside the daily operations of an active production plant. Installation, which is expected to take 28 weeks, is progressing without interrupting the fruit and vegetable processing lines. Collaboration with the other companies involved — Construcciones Urdecon, Morales Ingenieros, Pefipresa and Infrisa — is proving essential in coordinating the different construction phases.

"This expansion is a key step in our growth strategy. Our main priority was to carry it out without affecting our frozen vegetable processing operations, and at this stage of the project, we can say that we are achieving this: the plant continues to operate normally while construction of the structure progresses.

Coordination with the AR Racking team has been excellent, from the initial design and engineering through to the installation stages currently under way. Communication is constant, and whenever an unforeseen issue arises on site, the response is swift. In a project involving so many companies, that agility makes all the difference," says Antonio Navarro, from the General Management team at Ultracongelados Azarbe, S.A.

According to Gorka Larrañaga, responsible for Project Management at AR Racking, "Building a clad-rack structure measuring 35 metres to the underside of the roof trusses and up to 38 metres including the trusses, while the plant continues operating, requires detailed planning at every stage. Our collaboration with the customer began during the initial design and engineering phases, and that groundwork is now translating seamlessly into the installation stages currently under way. Daily coordination with Ultracongelados Azarbe and with Construcciones Urdecon, Morales Ingenieros, Pefipresa and Infrisa has been essential: we share information in real time, make decisions quickly, and this is reflected in the progress being made on site. We would like to thank Ultracongelados Azarbe for placing their trust in our team."

Xabier Rica, Sales Manager at AR Racking, adds: "From our very first conversations with Ultracongelados Azarbe, there has been a strong sense of alignment between the teams. We understood their needs from the outset, and that shared understanding, established during the initial design phase, is enabling us to move efficiently through every stage, from engineering to manufacturing and installation. It is a project we are extremely proud of and one that reflects our experience in this type of structure."