Platform for the food and beverage industry
"Life is like a box of chocolate. You never know what you're going to get," Forrest Gump once said. But not if it depends on Barry Callebaut's The Chocolate Box. The new chocolate warehouse in Lokeren is 12 soccer fields large, 41 meters high and also the largest and most sustainable in the world. From Lokeren, 20 to 30 chocolate containers are loaded daily, ready to be transported all over the world.
With a total investment amount of 100 million euros, this is Barry Callebaut's largest ever investment in its operational network. Construction of the warehouse, with a total area of 12 soccer fields, began in the summer of 2019. Less than 24 months later, the building was completed. The fully automated 41-meter-high high bay can store up to 125,000 pallets at a constant temperature of 18°C.
The Chocolate Box is also the most sustainable chocolate warehouse in the world. The Chocolate Box was the first building in the Benelux to receive a BREEAM Outstanding certificate, achieving the highest sustainability score for logistics buildings. The building can fully provide for its own energy consumption and is therefore completely energy positive.
It uses the latest techniques in sustainable construction: solar panels, air handling units, rainwater and heat recovery, humidity control, insulation and geothermal energy. For employees' well-being, there is natural daylight throughout the building and relaxation areas and facilities for e-bikes.
There are 120 food heroes working in the warehouse, 40 of whom are doing new jobs. To get young people excited about a job in the food industry, Barry Callebaut is working with dual learning paths. Students from the 5th and 6th years of secondary education can gain experience in the warehouse as, for example, forklift drivers, a bottleneck profession in Flanders.
