PepsiCo’s inauguration of its new XXL warehouse for northern France in Dourges has highlighted the optimization efforts at the heart of its partnership with ID Logistics. The site handles approximately 200 SKUs, primarily in sweet and savory grocery items, to supply 200 retail distribution warehouses, with a small foodservice and export component.
Winning the Contract
To win the tender, the 3PL had the advantage of being able to transfer teams from the previous site in Libercourt, reuse its Infolog WMS, and precisely target proposed innovations—”with the right balance to find together between investment level and our expectations in terms of efficiency and safety,” noted Laurent Kamiel, now PepsiCo’s Supply Chain Transformation Director for Europe.
Automated Truck Unloading
On two docks of one of the five 10,000 sqm units, key equipment automates and accelerates truck unloading from the Belgian snack factory in Veurne (70-80% of inbound flows). Supplied by British specialist Joloda Hydraroll, these systems unload a truck in 3 minutes (though requiring adapted trailers, with similar docks being installed at the source factory). These pallets, reaching up to 2.60m high, are then split in height by an automatic cutting system and re-wrapped via a solution from French company Thimon, given the 1.80m limit set by Carsat for customer deliveries.
Smart Automation Deployment
Automation has also been introduced for inter-unit pallet transfers, with soon 4 Agilox AMRs using narrow aisles reserved for their use. Another AMR, the Astrid robot co-developed by ID and now marketed by Dexory, travels through aisles scanning 5,000 locations per hour via multiple cameras, completing a full inventory in under three nights.
Additional innovations are planned for the docks, including Ware ID’s Freescan technology for automatic pallet barcode reading at unloading and shipping docks. A co-packing workshop is also operated by the 3PL for promotional operations.
International Expansion
“This collaboration with PepsiCo initiated in Pas-de-Calais has since taken an international turn, first in Poland across 3 sites, but even more in the United States, and since 2022 in Argentina,” recalled Frédéric Grenier, ID’s France Managing Director. That’s nine sites, approximately 550,000 sqm, and over a thousand employees serving this major client.
