Vikatkraft Hosts Virtual Opening of Automated High-Bay Warehouse

Only 18 months after the start of construction work, the new fully automated high-bay warehouse of the pet food manufacturer Vitakraft has now been ceremoniously opened at the company’s Bremen site. The special feature: The event on September 21 took place digitally and was broadcast worldwide.  

Due to the special conditions resulting from the pandemic, Vitakraft, together with the Hamburg agency Impulspiloten, set up a studio on the company premises especially for the event, from which the opening event was digitally recorded and broadcast. Thanks to this innovative format, in addition to representatives from politics or trade, for example, the more than 1,100 employees worldwide were able to be present at the VitaCube Opening live and in real-time transmission. 

Janine Mehner presented the one-hour program, which was varied with interviews, film clips and musical interludes. 

An image film about Vitakraft’s success story provided the background for the need for the warehouse, while a making-of film gave an insight into the construction period. Logistics manager Christian Korpel reported on the new building and spoke about the exciting challenge of implementing such a major project in parallel with day-to-day operations. 

The mayor of Bremen, Andreas Bovenschulte, and the mayor of the nearby town Achim, Rainer Ditzfeld, congratulated on the opening by video clip.  

In addition, representatives of IVH and ZZF as well as managing directors of the Vitakraft sales companies in Asia, the U.S.A. and Italy (representing Europe) were digitally recorded. 

The event ended with a moderated round of talks, in which chief communication Dieter Meyer and logistics manager Christian Korpel were joined by Fred Merz from Intralogistik, who as chief engineer was responsible for coordinating all the trades. 

Vitakraft has seen steady growth in the international pet markets in recent years, which has inevitably pushed production and storage capacities to their limits. With the new high-bay warehouse, the company has now expanded its storage capacity by 44,000 pallet spaces to cope with the expected growth in the coming years. With an investment volume of approximately $29.3 million, Vitakraft has also made an important contribution to securing its location.