As a scoop, in a waffle, in a cup: Eisbär Eis Produktions GmbH in Ribnitz-Damgarten, northern Germany, produces up to three million ice cream portions every day – all year round and especially during the holidays such as Christmas. The ice cream specialist delivers the sweet goods to many European countries and specialities to the USA and Australia. In 1992, it was impossible to think of such proportions. Back then, the company had 30 employees, today it has around 250, and the maximum production volume is now around 18,000 tonnes of ice cream per year. To achieve this, state-of-the-art technology is used in both production and warehousing. Reliable fire protection, which prevents damage to the goods even in an emergency, is, therefore, a must. In the modern deep-freeze, high-bay warehouse with temperatures around -24°C WAGNER is responsible for this.
Completed in 2019, the deep-freeze warehouse is 100 m long, 25 m wide, 30 m high, has a volume of 75,000 m³ and three aisles with double-deep pallet storage. “The expansion of the deep-freeze area enables us to provide an additional storage capacity of 12,000 pallet spaces,” says Thomas Fürtig, operations manager at Eisbär Eis. The storage, retrieval and picking of goods is carried out automatically via a modern warehouse management system. Due to many years of cooperation in fire protection, Eisbär Eis decided to install an oxygen reduction system for active fire prevention in the new building as well. The oxygen reduction system running in the three existing warehouses was also modernised.
The protection goals were clearly defined in advance: In addition to personal protection, the fire protection solution had to ensure that operational and logistical processes were not interrupted, thus minimizing damage and losses in the event of an emergency. “An interruption of operations is an absolute no-go. For us, it is all about the safety of the
warehouse and the protection of the new investment. After all, our availability always has top priority,” summarizes Thomas Fürtig. Two energy-efficient OxyReduct ® V-Line systems thus protect the deep-freeze complex. By means of a controlled nitrogen supply, the oxygen content in the area is reduced to a defined protection level. In this way, the necessary
oxygen is withdrawn from a possible fire in the formation phase. A fire can no longer develop or spread. In addition, the deep-freeze area is equipped with TITANUS ® air sampling smoke detectors for early fire detection, which are installed above the aisles in the deep-freeze warehouse. The systems detect the smallest smoke particles as early as possible and
reliably differentiate between fire and deception scenarios. Effective countermeasures can thus be initiated quickly and in a targeted manner, avoiding smoke in the storage area and contamination of the goods. The combination of the earliest possible fire detection and active fire prevention provides Eisbär Eis with an integrated fire protection solution of the highest standard.
For more information, go to www.wagnergroup.com
